BULAQ | بولاق

Mar 06 2025 142 ep. 55 mins 287
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.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  Arts  News  Society & Culture
RSS feed Share
Copy RSS


Subscribe on Podcast Addict


‘One Day,’ with Omar El Akkad

Mar 06 2025 53 mins  
Journalist, novelist, and memoirist Omar El Akkad talks about his latest book, One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This – a blend of memoir, social criticism, and moral philosophy. The book creates and shares space for everyone who is full of grief and rage, who cannot be at home in institutions that support or ignore genocide. We discuss the linguistic obfuscations a

Listening to Syria with Alia Malek

Feb 06 2025 53 mins  
Journalist, author and editor Alia Malek tells us about her recent visit to Damascus and about the anthology of Syrian writing she edited for McSweeneys. Aftershocks was released in December 2024, just days after Bashar al-Assad fled Syria and the country's political prisons began to crack open. The collection brings together work by sixteen Syrian authors who write from diasporic

Inside The World of Lebanese Comics with Rawand Issa

Jan 02 2025 60 mins  
Comics artist Rawand Issa joins us to talk about her book Inside the Giant Fish (trans. Amy Chiniara, Maamoul Press); her path from journalism to graphic art; artist groups and collectives across the region; the “new school of Arab comics,” and the challenges of making a living as a comics artist. We also talk about a few other Lebanese graphic novels, particularly Lamia Ziadé

Give and Take

Dec 05 2024 60 mins  
In this episode, we talk through some literary news from Algeria and France, discuss two big translations out this fall from towering authors, as well as a new favorite by Maya Abu al-Hayyat. Then we turn to Read Palestine Week and the new collection focused on writers in Gaza, And Still We Write, before a discussion on refusing to work with Israeli publishers that are complicit in

Arabic culture and literature in Spain

Nov 07 2024 39 mins  
Today’s guest, Irene Lozano, is the director of a Spanish cultural institution, Casa Arabe. It received the 2024 Sheikh Zayed Book Award for Cultural Personality of the Year. As we’ll discuss, Casa Arabe is a center of learning, discussion and exchange between Spain and Arab countries. It offers Arabic language classes and a myriad of cultural initiatives and programs, includin

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