A literary critic, editor and leading authority on Arabic to English translation lists five books to keep on your radar.
For the shorter days of spring, here are some new Arab books in translation coming in the early months of 2023 that run short, fast, and muscular.
These five are full of thrills, insight, and dark humour.
Shalash the Iraqi
By Shalash, translated by Luke Leafgren
The popular Iraqi blogger known as “Shalash” wrote his posts between 2005 and 2006, during the post-war insurgency in Iraq. Shalash took advantage of anonymity and wide reach to satirize political corruption, economic injustice, and more in an over-the-top comic tone.
Release date: May
Find more here.
Black Foam
(AmazonCrossing)
By Haji Jaber, translated by Sawad Hussain and M Lynx Qualey
The hero of Haji Jaber’s Black Foam is a hustler and identity-shifter extraordinaire in desperate search not of cash, but of a community that will accept him. The young man—alternately Adal, Dawoud, David, and Dawit— starts in Eritrea, then in a refugee camp over the border in Ethiopia, next in a minority Jewish community in Ethiopia, and finally in Israel and Palestine. In this fast-paced novel, which alternates between comedy and tragedy, the narrator is willing to do almost anything to find a place he can belong.
Release date: February
Find more here.
Sour Grapes
(Syracuse University Press)
By Zakaria Tamer, translated by Alessandro Columbu and Mireia Costa Capallera
These fifty-nine stories—by turns satirical and magical—are set in a fictional Syrian neighborhood called al-Qaweyq. Penned by one of the greatest living short-story writers, the stories in Sour Grapes follow a loosely connected cast of characters living at society’s margins and challenging everything that might keep them down.
Release date: May
Find more here.
Fate the Hunter: Early Arabic Hunting
Poems
(Library of Arabic Literature)
Edited and translated by James Montgomery
James Montgomery, the award-winning translator of Antarah ibn Shaddad’s battle poems War Songs, now takes on early Arabic hunting poems. This collection brings together both the English and Arabic of twenty-six muscular, animal-centered works. In these timeless poems of man and nature, you’ll find trained cheetahs chasing down desert oryx, goshawks soaring, and archers stalking their prey.
Release date: March
Find more here.
Scorched Grace
(Gillian Flynn Books)
By Margot Douaihy
Not a translation, but a noteworthy entry. The mystery-novel debut of Lebanese-American Margot Douaihy, Scorched Grace tells the story of Sister Holiday, a hard-boiled, much-tattooed nun with a troubled past who joins a convent in New Orleans. After an arsonist targets—among other things—her new convent, Sister Holiday launches an investigation. By focusing on family and secrets, Douaihy offers a new take on the figure of the hard-boiled detective.
Release date: February
Find more here.
More great books by Arab authors
source/content: esquireme.com (headline edited)
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ARABIC BOOKS