BULAQ | بولاق

Oct 17 2024 137 ep. 55 mins 284

BULAQ | بولاق Podcast artwork

BULAQ is a book-centric podcast co-hosted by Ursula Lindsey (in Amman, Jordan) and M Lynx Qualey (in Rabat, Morocco). It focuses on Arabic literature in translation and is named after the first printing press established in Egypt in 1820. Produced by Sowt.
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Flash Fiction Winner Karima Ahdad

Oct 17 2024 47 mins

Moroccan author Karima Ahdad was the winner of this year’s Arabic Flash Fiction contest run by ArabLit and Komet Kashakeel, which saw more than 900 entries from around the world. We read her award-winning story in Katherine Van de Vate’s discussion and discuss patriarchy, story creation, and what it means to write “feminist” work.Show Notes:Karima was also shortlisted for a

Reem Bassiouney: Writing Historical Fiction is like “Stringing Pearls”

Oct 03 2024 42 mins

An epic historical novel set in Fatimid Cairo, Reem Bassiouney’s The Halva-Maker trilogy won the Sheikh Zayed Book Award and is forthcoming in English. The book explores the founding of Cairo, by a Shia dynasty and a set of generals and rulers who all hailed from elsewhere. We talked to Bassiouney about balancing research and imagination; shining a light on women in Egyptian medi

Deena Mohamed’s Graphic Novel Asks: What If Your Wish Came True?

Aug 15 2024 62 mins

We recorded this interview with Deen in January 2022, just as her debut urban-fantasy trilogy Shubeik Lubeik (“Your Wish is My Command”) was coming out in English. This original and beautifully illustrated story imagines that wishes of varying quality can be bought and sold in contemporary Cairo, with unpredictable and poignant results. It has been widely celebrated and nominat

Etel Adnan: “I Write What I See, Paint What I Am”

Jul 03 2024 67 mins

Art critic and journalist Kaelen Wilson-Goldie joins us for a sweeping look at the life, writing, and art of singular Lebanese author-artist Etel Adnan (1925-2021). Kaelin Wilson-Goldie’s Etel Adnan is available from Lund Humphries.Adnan’s Time, translated by Sarah Riggs, is available from Nightboat Books.The Beauty of Light, a collection of interviews with Laure Adl

This Moment

May 01 2024 40 mins

Majalla 28 is a literary magazine out of Gaza co-producing an issue with ArabLit. We talk about the work by co-editors Mahmoud al-Shaer and Mohamed al-Zaqzouq and read excerpts from that issue. After that, we talk about a particular kind of Palestinian literature – by writers serving life sentences. Find out more about the Gaza issue at arablit.orgMore writing by Heba Al-Agh

Ghassan Kanafani: Defiance on Every Page

Mar 14 2024 68 mins

Ghassan Kanafani is best known for his famous novellas, but he was many things besides a talented writer: a prolific journalist, an insightful critic and editor, a heterodox Marxist, a spokesman for the militant Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. He wrote and lived like he had no time to waste (which turned out to be true: he was assassinated in an Israeli car bombing a

WITH GAZA

Jan 18 2024 68 mins

This episode features writing from and about Gaza, and explores the imperative to write, between hope and hopelessness, at a time when words both seem to count enormously and to not be enough. Show NotesThis episode’s cover art is by Chema Peral @chema_peralLetter from Gaza by Ghassan Kanafani was written in 1956.Mahmoud Darwish’s Silence for the Sake of Gaza is part of hi

On Translating Arabic Literature with Robin Moger

Oct 12 2023 53 mins

We talk to Robin Moger about how he became a translator from Arabic and about what has changed in recent years in the field of Arabic literature and translation and what has stayed the same. Moger’s first book-length literary translation was Hamdi Abu Golayyel’s 2008 novel الفاعل, which became A Dog with No Tail. His most recent is a translation of Iman Mersal’s في أ

A Crime at the End of the Sahara

Sep 14 2023 46 mins

Said Khatibi’s detective novel نهاية الصحراء (End of the Sahara) is set in a remote desert city in Algeria in the Fall of 1988, when the country’s October Riots are about to break out place. The book is one of the winners of this year’s Sheikh Zayed Book Award. Khatibi explained how his writing is also a way of exploring larger historical crimes. Show No

Remembering Hamdi Abu Golayyel

Jul 13 2023 79 mins

Egyptian novelist Hamdi Abu Golayyel died last month at the age of 56. In this episode, we remember Hamdi and his one-of-a-kind literary career, telling the story of Egypt’s laborers, Bedouin, and migrants. Show Notes:Egyptian Novelist Hamdi Abu Golayyel Dies at 56: ‘There Was No One Like Him’A Special Section at ArabLit on Abu Golayyel, Bedouin Poetry, and ‘The Men Wh