The list of 29 titles - a record number - submitted for the £3,000 Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Translation 2015 was released during the Open Evening of the Banipal Arab British Centre Library of Modern Arab Literature (BALMAL) held at the Arab British Centre in London on 29 July. The titles, translated by 25 translators, were on display on the shelves of BALMAL, together with a display of the titles to have won the prize, now in its 10th year.
The 2015 prize is open to Arabic-English translations published between 1 April 2014 and 31 March 2015.

In alphabetical order by translator, the submitted titles are:

Hosam Abou-Ela
Stealth by Sonallah Ibrahim (New Directions)

Kareem James Abu-Zeid
Nothing More to Lose by Najwan Darwish (New York Review Books)
The Iraqi Nights by Dunya Mikhail (New Directions)

Marilyn Booth
The Penguin's Song by Hassan Daoud (City Lights Publishers)

Charis Bredin
African Titanics by Abu Bakr Khaal (Darf Publishers)

Raphael Cohen
Butterfly Wings by Mohamed Salmawy (The American University in Cairo Press)

C J Collins
Fullblood Arabian by Osama Alomar (New Directions)

Humphrey Davies
The Broken Mirrors: Sinalcol by Elias Khoury (MacLehose Press)

Sarah Enany
Diary of a Jewish Muslim by Kamal Ruhayyim (AUC Press)

Paula Haydar and Nadine Sinno
Who's Afraid of Meryl Streep? by Rashid Al-Daif (University of Texas Press)

Kay Heikkinen
The Woman from Tantoura by Radwa Ashour (AUC Press)

William M Hutchins
French Perfume by Amir Tag Elsir (Antibookclub)

Luke Leafgren
Dates on my Fingers by Muhsin al-Ramli (AUC Press)
Oh, Salaam! by Najwa Barakat (Interlink)

Robin Moger
Where Pigeons Don't Fly by Yousef Al-Mohaimeed (Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing - BQFP)
Women of Karantina by Nael Eltoukhy (AUC Press)
The Crocodiles by Youssef Rakha (Seven Stories Press)

Nancy Roberts
Chaos of the Senses by Ahlem Mosteghanemi (Bloomsbury)
Days of Ignorance by Laila Aljohani (BQFP)
Lanterns of the King of Galilee by Ibrahim Nasrallah (AUC Press)

Barbara Romaine
Blue Lorries by Radwa Ashour (BQFP)

Chip Rossetti
Beirut, Beirut by Sonallah Ibrahim (BQFP)

Paul Starkey
The Book of the Sultan's Seal by Youssef Rakha (Interlink)

Mbarek Sryfi and Roger Allen
Monarch of the Square: An Anthology of Muhammad Zafzaf's Short Stories
by Muhammad Zafzaf (Syracuse University Press)

John Verlenden and Ferial Ghazoul
The Chronicles of Majnun Layla and Selected Poems by Qassim Haddad (Syracuse University Press)

Farouk Abdel Wahab
Rain Over Baghdad by Hala el Badry (AUC Press)

Jonathan Wright
Land of No Rain by Amjad Nasser (BQFP)
Temple Bar by Bahaa Abdelmegid (AUC Press)

Mona Zaki
Chewing Gum by Mansour Bushnaf (Darf Publishers)

The English translation of Egyptian novelist and short-story writer Bahaa Abdelmegid's 2011 novel Khammarat al-ma'bad (Dar Merit) is published by the American University in Cairo (AUC) Press under the title Temple Bar - the name of an area in Dublin famed for its bars, cafes and cultural life. The novel, translated by Jonathan Wright, explores the cultural and spiritual dislocation of Egyptian student Moataz after he leaves Cairo for Dublin in 1998. A Fulbright scholar from a poor family, Moataz endures various unexpected travails after he enrols at Dublin’s Trinity College to research a PhD on Irish literature.


How far is Temple Bar autobiographical? It is written mainly in the first person, and certain facts coincide, including your going to Dublin’s Trinity College in 1998-99, though as a visiting academic rather than a student. You have also been a Fulbright scholar, though elsewhere. Moataz encounters many different types of people in Dublin. Was this also the case with you?

To some extent the novel is autobiographical. I was a visiting academic at Trinity College more than fifteen years ago, at a time when Ireland was fresh to the EU. Dublin was flourishing and progressing and welcomed foreigners, though with some fear and apprehension. Although my hero suffers a lack of generosity from the authorities, who neglect the expatriates and foreign students, on the level of ordinary people he finds them very sympathetic and kind. My personal experience was important, but as a novelist I try to reflect my own imagination and skill as a writer rather than depending on memories or easy reflections on my travel experiences. I tried to make Temple Bar a sort of A Passage to India or Death in Venice in which the author is a serious and independent character and not just a narrator from the first person perspective.

How much were James Joyce and other Irish writers in your mind when you were in Dublin and when you were writing Temple Bar?

I was fascinated by Dublin and Irish writers when I was an undergraduate, though they were taught within an English literature syllabus, but it was when I started writing about Ted Hughes in my MA thesis that Seamus Heaney started to become a reality, and he was an open door to Irish culture. I was of course fascinated by Yeats , Synge , Shaw and Oscar Wilde. Living in Trinity College gave me the chance to read many contemporary poets such as Seamus Heaney and others. Joyce was a colossal figure for me as a novelist with his great novel Ulysses and his characters Bloom, Dedalus, Molly, and Dublin with its vividness and the story of its people at the beginning of the twentieth century. For me Joyce represents two things: modernism, and a genius mind. With his modernist approach he created a new novel form, and with his genius mind he did unprecedented work . Ulysses was strongly in my mind when I was writing Temple Bar and I identified with its hero all the time and I imagined myself as both Stephen and Joyce at the same time. I tried to walk in the same places and I planned my novel as a journey in the mind and the place of my character as James Joyce did.

It’s interesting for people to read a literary work depicting their country through the eyes of a writer and  fictional characters from another country and culture. Has there been much fiction by Arab writers set in Ireland as far as you know, and written in Arabic or English? 

It is true, and I think I tried to depict Ireland as I saw it from many different perspectives. But from a literary historian perspective, as you ask, Somaya Ramadan wrote Leaves of Narcissus - published in English by AUC Press as well - about her own journey to Dublin. We are friends by the way, and we are very fond of Irish culture.


Has your book been read by any of your contacts, friends, in Ireland, and have you had feedback or reviews there? Are you worried about how they might react to your depiction of Dublin and the treatment there of foreigners? Would you like a launch in Dublin, and how did you find the literary scene in that city – eg at the Irish Writers’ Centre – did you have much contact with Irish writers?

I do not know what reactions there will be to my novel in Ireland, and this is very difficult to predict. I do not have a lobby either in Cairo or somewhere else in the world may be an interview like that will help in promoting my novel and make fair publicity. I am very timid and I never ask for more, like Oliver in Oliver Twist by Dickens. I think my publisher AUC Press will help introduce me to Dublin readers and the Irish intelligentsia in the near future; it is doing its best to promote my books. My novel is highly experimental and sophisticated and needs a good critic to reveal its narratives. I think it could be studied on comparative or post-colonial literature courses. I think if the novel was introduced to Irish reviewers they would write about it but till now I do not see any reaction. Of course I would love to launch in Dublin it is an old and a great city for culture. I often visited the Irish Writers’ Centre, and I had many writer friends, but that was a long time ago. Irish writers are very distinguished and I think Irish readers would be open-minded enough to accept any observations made about their lives by a foreigner. I wrote my novel to immortalize them and to document my own experience from different perspective. Although there have not yet been any reviews of Temple Bar in Ireland, there are many in Arabic.

Did you find Ireland and Dublin different from the Ireland and Dublin of your imagination?

To some extent it was the Ireland of Synge’s The Playboy of the Western World but when I was there I discovered the difference between the image of fiction and reality but still people are interested in myth and talk. 

Flowers play a significant part in your book, with Moataz becoming a flower seller at one point, after running out of money, and thereby getting an entry into the lives of the women flower-sellers. We learn from him that he had also sold flowers back in Cairo. Could you say something about your own relationship with the flower business and how you know it so well?
 
My family has one of Egypt’s major flower businesses, and we have very luxurious and prestigious shops in the Maadi area of south Cairo. I was introduced to the business when I was only 13 and I have very good experience in this field. I used to visit the Netherlands with my brother to attend the great Aalsmeer flower festival. My novel Leaves of Paradise is about this travel and I think it would be great if it were translated into Dutch. I am a lover of greenery and interested in the purity of nature and I would love to join the Green Party in UK if this were possible! Creating a clean environment is one of my interests and aspirations.

Could you say something about what you were writing in terms of fiction when you were actually living in Dublin, and where you were when you wrote Temple Bar? Did you need some distance of time and place from Dublin to write this novel?

I was researching on Seamus Heaney for my PhD and I consider it a good exercise on writing and I benefited from it when I came to write Temple Bar. I wrote The Black Piano in 1996 and I was looking for a big writing project, especially a novel. I started writing the novel Saint Theresa and some sketches based on certain characters I met in Dublin, especially women of flowers. It is true that I took some time to finish Temple Bar: in fact it took me 13 years to write and rewrite it and for it to be published. I felt it was necessary to be objective and direct and not to be over-sentimental. I did not want it to be a “travel literature novel” but a novel in the classical sense.

The novel was translated by the prizewinning translator Jonathan Wright and published in English by AUC Press. How did these two things come about? How did you work with Jonathan – did you meet him, did he have many questions in person or by Skype or email?

I consider myself lucky in English translation and I would like to take this opportunity to thank my publisher, AUC Press, for taking care of my writing. They translated two of my previous novels, Saint Theresa and Sleeping With Strangers, translated by Chip Rossetti and published as one volume in 2010. Jonathan Wright did a great job in translating Temple Bar. He is in my view an excellent translator, and he took great care over the novel’s stream of consciousness technique and its polyphonies. He was very accurate and asked me many questions via emails and Facebook. I did not meet Jonathan before or during the translation, but after the publication of Temple Bar AUC Press introduced us, and I am honoured by this cooperation.

Is Temple Bar your technically most complex work? You have various flashbacks, changes of tense and of person. Was this style difficult to accomplish? Do you do much rewriting after a first draft? Did you start Temple Bar with a definite outline of the novel that you stuck to, or did it evolve as you went along?

It is true and I consider it a turning point in my writing career. It was a reflection of my power as a writer; I wanted the novel to reflect my skills as a writer, but at the same time I remember how much I enjoyed writing Temple Bar even though I was writing about the sufferings and sorrows of its hero. At a certain point I did not want to publish it and I was even afraid of publishing it as it revealed so much of myself and the lives of others. I rewrote it many times and I have many drafts, to a degree I want to sell them in an auction or put it in an archive! but my friends in Egypt laughed at this and said “Who do you think you are, James Joyce?” I wanted to write the life of Moataz , this was my first plan, but then life changed and fate played its part in the life of Moataz so I had to add a different ending because many event evolved from this new end.

Do you have a daily writing routine, and are you always writing? Do you keep a notebook of observations etc and did you have such a notebook in Dublin? Do you listen to music, write at home, at work, or in cafes and so on?

Yes, I have a routine to my day. I work in the early morning , and I always go out to look for a place to write, maybe a coffee shop . Sometimes I write at home, as recently as two years ago I used to write only with pen but I then started to use a keyboard. I write every day, though not necessarily fiction: I also write emails, reviews, and my Facebook status. I write sometimes in the summer where I am free of teaching obligations. I like to keep a notebook and I still have my notebook from when I was in Dublin. I am fond of listening to music while writing especially Beethoven and Mohamed Abdelwahb , Om Kulthum and Angham.


In an interview with Egypt Today you said that during the years you were writing Temple Bar, you got married and changed your life completely. Could you say something about how in your view marriage and children may affect a writer’s life and material?

He becomes more mature and responsible and also it widens his domestic experience and puts him in touch with life in a broader sense. Sometimes domestic responsibility for a writer can stand as an obstacle in his development and his search for different and unusual experience but with some organization he can cope. I am lucky because I have a wife who understands the meaning of being a writer. She tries as much as she can not to interfere in my life as a writer and most of the time she gives me some space in which to create.

In your CV you say singing is one of your hobbies. The character Simone, with whom Moataz becomes involved, studies world music, and Moataz sings on occasion. Could you say something about this music angle of the novel? Did you yourself do any singing or take part in music making while in Dublin?

Yes I did, I sang sometimes in pubs in Dublin, though as a guest rather than professionally, and joined in singing with friends. Music is essential in the life of the Irish, and especially the singing of ballads. Music can be heard everywhere and this is similar to Egypt where music is common in coffee shops and in the streets. Singing is equal to existence to me and it releases me from my cares. When I sing I become happier and lighter. Many members of my dad’s family practised Sufi singing, and my father taught me many songs. In this sad city of Dublin singing is a vital route to survival.

Despite Moataz’s tribulations there’s quite a bit of humour in the novel, and at times his apparent innocence creates some amusing encounters. Was this something you intended, or did it come naturally with the writing?

It is natural I think, I am still innocent like Moataz. Humour comes naturally from ironical situations. Life itself is a big joke and art’s function is to reveal this joke. Though tragic end is essential , but can we stop it , no so it is better to try to laugh. But at certain moment in Moataz’s life he could not laugh, especially when he was depressed, and from here comes the irony.

At one point Moataz teaches Arabic to a young French Jew, Lusini, who later tells him he has Egyptian roots and that his grandfather had left Egypt after the 1948 war, going first to Israel and then England. “I don’t know why, but after that I stopped going to give him Arabic lessons, despite his polite manner...” and lack of racism, and Zionism. Could you say a bit about this brief but somehow revealing passage of the novel?

History and culture play a big role in the attitudes of people. Moataz has a heritage of suspicion and lack of tolerance and maybe he wanted to be free and to live his own life, but he could not. He was afraid of being a traitor in the eyes of Egyptian socialists who think peace with Israel is a crime, and a normalization of ties a sin. 
interview conducted by Susannah Tarbush

BOOK REVIEW

Vanished: The Mysterious Disappearance of Mustafa Ouda by Ahmed Masoud
Rimal Publications, Cyprus, 2015
pbk, 204pp
ISBN: 978-9963-715-13-8

In this absorbing debut novel the Gaza-born Palestinian-British writer Ahmed Masoud tells of the obsessive quest of a young Gazan, Omar Ouda, for the father who disappeared in February 1982 when Omar was seven months old. Part thriller, part coming-of-age tale, Vanished takes the reader deep into Gazan society from the perspective of a boy growing up under the brutal Israeli occupation and in the tumultuous years following the Oslo Accords.

Vanished is published by independent publishing house Rimal Publications, established in Nicosia, Cyprus, in 1993 by publisher Nora Shawwa. It is one of seven books shortlisted for the MEMO Palestine Book Awards 2015. The winners will be announced at a ceremony on 19 November. An earlier version of Vanished, entitled Gaza Days, won the award for best unpublished novel at the Muslim Writers Awards in London in 2011.

Most of the novel is narrated by Omar in the first person, and is set in Gaza from 1981 – the year of Omar’s birth – to 2011. These three decades include the Israeli occupation, the first intifada, the Oslo Accords, the rise of Hamas, and the second intifada.

Masoud interweaves this political backdrop and Omar's own story with skill. He gives a vivid picture of life in Jabalia refugee camp: the cramped alleyways, the mixture of smells, the savour of Gaza's characteristic foods and the terror and paranoia created by Israeli curfews, attacks, detentions and killings, and the treachery of collaborators. There is a sense of people being trapped in their national, family and personal histories. While Vanished is the story of  Omar’s search for his absent father, beneath it runs the wider loss of Palestine and the trauma of a people uprooted from their homes in the Nakba. Omar’s family comes from the village of Deir Suneid, which became part of Israel, and like so many other Palestinian refugee families still has the key to its house in Palestine.

Omar's first-person narrative is juxtaposed with a third-person narrative rendered in italics and set at the time of the Israeli assault on Gaza in summer 2014. Omar is living in London with his British wife Zoe and his baby son, named Mustafa after Omar’s father. During the Gaza war he tries to keep  in contact with his family and friends in Gaza through emails, and breaks down when his uncle Attiya phones, the sound of explosions in the background, and asks to be forgiven for all the mistakes he has made.

Omar knows that the tiny family house in Gaza is unlikely to withstand the heavy Israeli bombardments. "But it wasn't just the house that troubled him, it was the story hidden in its thin walls, and story of a boy growing up in fear and later the reconciliation that finally happened there and allowed him to let go and move on, start a new life in London."

Omar feels compelled to return to Gaza, travelling via Egypt and the Rafah crossing. At Heathrow Airport he buys a large leather notebook and begins to write his life story in the form of a letter to his son, in case something happens to him in Gaza and his son never sees him again. It is Omar's story written for his son that takes up most of Vanished.

Omar's planned return to Gaza is hampered by bureaucracy. Despite the fact that he has both British and Palestinian passports, an official at Cairo International Airport insists that he must have an exit visa in his Palestinian passport from the country he travelled from. Omar is forced to travel on to Jordan solely for the purpose of getting an exit stamp from Queen Alia Airport. On his return to Cairo Airport he is escorted to the "disgusting deporation room" where Palestinians have to wait to be put on a bus to Rafah; some of those squeezed into the room have been waiting more than a week.

As a young child Omar felt the absence of his father keenly but his mother was tight-lipped about the full circumstances of his disappearance. All Omar knows is that his father was regularly woken in the night by Israeli troops who would order him to clean graffiti off walls outside, and that it was while engaged in one of these nocturnal graffiti removal exercises that Mustafa disappeared.

Omar lives in a small house with his mother. After the death of Omar's grandfather, Mustafa and his brother Attiya had divided the family house, with Mustafa getting the smaller share. Attiya had built the biggest house in Jabalia Camp with many lemon and apricot trees and a vine. He is a big contractor and supplies Gazan workers to Israeli contruction companies. The thousands of workers get up at 4am to prepare for the crossing into Israel.

At the age of eight Omar feels his father  to be “my invisible companion” and constantly scrutinises his  photograph, pleased to note the physical similarities between him and his father. In the photograph Mustafa is wearing dark jeans and a shirt that would have been in fashion at the time: “it made me smile to think of my dad as fashionable guy who liked to keep up with the latest trends.”

Omar resolves to do all he can to  try and find his father. He knows from the Egyptian crime novels about the boy detective Takhtakh that “a good detective cannot do his job properly without the help of a sidekick”. One one level Vanished  is in the tradition of children's detective stories popular in many cultures - though this story is much darker than most. Omar enlists as his right-hand man his best friend Ahmed. Ahmed is loyal, courageous and honest, and has a  sharp nose for clues. But the more clues Omar and Ahmed discover,  the more the mystery of Mustafa's disappearance deepens.

The two boys' search for Omar's father takes place amidst the climate of danger facing Gaza's children. At one point Omar  is hospitalised after being shot in the leg by Israeli soldiers using live ammunition in a confrontation with children who respond by throwing stones. Omar is a mixture of bravado and fragility; he is attached to the animal fables of Kalila wa Dimna, some of which are recounted at certain points in the narrative. 

The Israeli occupying forces in Jabalia Camp are based in the El-Markaz Military Station under the feared military commander Uri. One day Omar manages to slip into El-Markaz, intending to demand information on his father's fate. He is at first defiant under questioning from Uri, but finds himself ensnared in a web of treachery, betrayal and blackmail. Omar’s predicament is compounded by a depraved incident that makes for horrifying reading; the trauma comes to overshadow Omar's life but he must at all costs try to keep it secret. One theme in Vanished is the phenomenon and mechanism of collaboration.

Omar starts to lead a double life and joins the underground resistance. This is a world of masked gunmen, secret tunnels and safe houses. The most influential woman in his life at this time is the memorable Um Marwan – a capable and committed middle-aged neighbour who holds Omar's father in high regard. Her wisdom and steadfastness are vital to Omar at crucial points.

When the Oslo Accords are signed in 1993 there is at first euphoria. Although Omar has some scepticism over the accords he is swept up in the excitement and becomes involved in Fatah organisations. But over time disillusionment and factionalism increase, and support for Hamas grows. 

Vanished is well plotted, with convincingly-drawn characters and constant twists, and the suspense is maintained until its final pages. It could however have done with some editorial tightening in places, and the text occasionally feels somewhat rushed - but then it does cover a remarkable amount of ground.
review by Susannah Tarbush

New British initiatives aim to counter ISIS on social media
by Susannah Tarbush

 Arabic version  was published in Al-Hayat daily newspaper 20 August 


One of the main tools used by ISIS in spreading and attracting followers has been its skilful use of YouTube, Twitter and other social media and internet sites to get its messages across and persuade Muslims from around the world to join it.

The ISIS videos that have gained most attention worldwide are those portraying its most gruesome killings and tortures. These are partly intended to strike fear into the enemies of ISIS. But at the same time ISIS uses social media to try attract young Muslims to join it as fighters, brides and members of its self-proclaimed “Islamic State”.

ISIS-related propaganda on social media has been blamed as a major factor in fact that an estimated 700 young British Muslims left Britain for ISIS-controlled territory in Syria and Iraq. Around half of them have returned, and the government fears they pose a security risk. Around 50 young Britons have been killed fighting in Syria or Iraq. While it was largely young men who went out at first, young Muslim women soon started to follow, and more recently entire extended British Muslim families have gone to areas under the control of ISIS.

Only a tiny proportion of British Muslims - who number around 2.7 million, nearly 5 per cent of the total UK population – have gone out to join ISIS, but it is thought a number of others have at least some sympathy with it. The terror threat in Britain was raised to “severe” a year ago because of the threat from ISIS, and it has been at this level ever since. Now, in recent weeks, anti-ISIS videos have started appearing on YouTube and other social media, with the aim of countering the ISIS message to young Britons. One of these new initiatives is Open Your Eyes which has a website at www.openyoureyes.net 

The Open Your Eyes initiative began when three young Yazidi women, who had suffered horrific sexual abuse at the hands of ISIS, visited the UK with the help of the government to address the media, politicians, and children at two schools, to tell them about their ordeal. The young Yazidis joined forces with a Birmingham-based activist Upstanding Neighbourhoods, to launch the Open Your Eyes campaign with support from the charity AMAR Foundation.


On its Twitter account Open Your Eyes says: “ISIS is lying to you. Open your eyes to the real story. We are working with young people, activists, bloggers and filmmakers to raise our voices against ISIS.” One of its Tweets says “Open Your Eyes needs your contributions – send in your video messages to take a stand against ISIS.” In one of its videos a young girl in a black headscarf named Krya speaks to the camera about British girls going out to join ISIS. In another Sabah, a Sunni who escaped ISIS in Iraq tells his story. Another video shows 18-year old schoolboy Surfaraz speaking up “because I don’t want anyone to be brainwashed by lies.”

A separate initiative to produce video material against ISIS is “Not Another Brother”, a campaign which aims to show the true human cost of radicalisation. As part of this campaign a short anti-ISIS film with this title has been circulating recently on YouTube, Twitter and other social media. The words accompanying it on YouTube say: “ISIL are radicalising our brothers to fight in Syria. They are tearing families apart. Enough is enough. Sharing this film will show ISIL that their extremist views have no place in our community. No family should lose another loved one to such hatred.”

The film shows a young British Muslim man, supposedly a fighter for ISIS in Syria, reading a letter from his older brother whose voiceover is in a strong London accent. There are the sounds of bombardments and explosions, and the young fighter’s wounds are dripping blood. In the letter his older brother apologises to for statements he had made that seem to have radicalised his younger brother and led to his deciding to go Syria to “become a hero”. At the end of the film words flash on screen: “Don’t let your words turn our brothers into weapons.” The film is meant to show how ideas can influence someone to become violent.

The “Not Another Brother” video campaign was launched by the Quilliam Foundation, the controversial counter-radicalisation think tank set up in 2007 by two former British Islamist extremists, Maajid Nawaz and Ed Husain who had both previously belonged to Hizb ut-Tahrir. “The video was developed in partnership with an agency named Verbalisation and its team of psychologists, military experts and linguists. It was financed by crowd-funding from 150 donors from 10 countries". Quilliam claims the it “can counter the influence of ISIL, and more broadly challenge the extremist narratives and ideologies that threaten us all.”

Reactions to the “Not Another Brother” film, on for example Twitter, reveal deep splits among Muslims. Some praised it, but others claim the Quilliam Foundation has no credibility at all within British Muslim communities. Critics see it as being too close to the government and as having too much influence on Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron.

These new anti-ISIS video campaigns have emerged alongside Cameron’s increasingly tough stance on ISIS, at home and abroad. In a speech on extremism he gave at a school in Birmingham on 20 July Cameron’s outlined his new five-year “Counter-Extremism Strategy”. His speech attacked the “poisonous ideology” that is hostile to British values. Quilliam co-founder Maajid Nawaz trumpeted the fact that he had had an important role in the drafting of the speech.

“We have to confront a tragic truth that there are people born and raised in this country who don’t really identify with Britain – and who feel little or no attachment to other people here,” Cameron said. He laid down his comprehensive strategy to try and tackle Islamist extremism and the “poisonous ideology” that lies behind it. He attacked non-violent extremism, saying: “You don’t have to support violence to subscribe to certain intolerant ideas which create a climate in which extremists can flourish.”

Cameron insisted that “the root cause of the threat we face is the Islamist ideology itself” and dismissed the impact on young Muslims of British and Western foreign policy, or the poverty, deprivation and discrimination suffered by some British Muslims, which he referred to as “perceived grievances” rather than genuine ones. 

Cameron has been taking an increasingly hard line towards British Muslims since he first became prime minister after the May 2010 general election. In 2011 he gave a key speech in Munich, condemning “non-violent” extremism as well as violent extremism.


In 2011 Cameron and his Home Secretary Theresa May relaunched the “Preventing Violent Extremism” agenda, known for short as Prevent, introduced by the Labour government after the 9/11 attacks in the US. The new policy stressed the dangers of non-violent extremism.

In June this year he gave a speech in the Slovakian capital Bratislava in which he urged British Muslims to do more to counter Islamist extremism. He upset many British Muslims when he accused some British Muslims of “quietly condoning” Islamic State ideology.

In order to try and deal with the terror threat in Britain, and the problem of young fighters going out to, and returning from, Syria and Iraq the Counterterrorism and Security Bill 2015 was introduced and has now became law. For example, from 1 July staff at schools, universities, the health service, councils, the police and prisons have had a legal duty to report people they think are vulnerable to radicalisation so that steps can be taken to try to prevent them becoming extremists.

Cameron said in his 20 July speech that the government will “use people who really understand the true nature of what life is like under ISIL to communicate to young and vulnerable people the brutal reality of the ideology.” In addition, the government will “empower the UK’s Syrian, Iraqi and Kurdish communities, so they can have platforms from which to speak out against the carnage ISIL is conducting in their countries.”

Cameron also urged internet companies to go further “in helping us identify potential terrorists online.” The internet companies have shown through their clamping down on child abuse images that “they can step up when there is a moral imperative to act. And now it’s time for them to do the same to protect their users from the scourge of radicalisation”.


Minister for Countering Extremism Lord Ahmad reinforces Cameron's message
The Conservative politician Lord Tariq Ahmad of Wimbledon was appointed as the Minister for Countering Extremism after the May 2015 general election. This is a position that was newly created at the Home Office after the election, reflecting the seriousness of the threat from extremism and terrorism facing Britain today.

Al-Hayat asked about Lord Ahmed about uncertainty and confusion over how “extremism” is to be defined. Lord Ahmed replied “I don’t think there is a confusion. I think it is at times a bit disingenuous for people to say they don’t understand.” He added that the government has been very clear over the definition of extremism as being “the vocal or active opposition to the values that we share, and those values include democracy, the rule of law, the mutual respect of people for all faiths, and cultures and practices. After the tragic death of Lee Rigby we added calls for attacks on our armed forces.” (British soldier Lee Rigby was murdered on 22 May 2013 in a London street on by two Nigerian male converts to Islam who ran him over in a car and tried to cut his head off).

Al-Hayat asked Lord Ahmad whether David Cameron’s new five-year Counter-Extremism Strategy will lead to yet more new legislation, given that this year has already seen the coming into law of the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015.

Lord Ahmad said that in the autumn the government will introduce a bill on the new Counter Extremism Strategy which will include orders which will prevent particular individuals “from being provided with a platform where they can again launch a tirade of abuse and perverse narrative which seek to divide our country and our society.” The bill will also include orders banning particular organisations which do not at present meet the current criteria for being proscribed, but which “vent not just a negative ideology but a very perverse ideology which calls for attacks on other communities and minorities.”

Al-Hayat pointed out that Britain has already had around a decade of efforts to prevent violent-extremism, later widened to include non-violent extremism. Does David Cameron’s new five-year Counter-Extremism Strategy have a better chance of reducing the threat from extremism than these previous attempts?

Lord Ahmad stressed that whereas previously, governments had looked at extremism through the prism of violent extremism, now it is “looking at extremism in all its ugly guises” before it becomes violent, so as “to prevent the seeds being sown in the minds of the young.” Groups such as ISIL, Al-Qaeda and in Nigeria Boko Haram are using YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and so on “as a means of attracting and influencing younger minds, they’re being effective in some part because many youngsters use those very mediums. So what we have to do is to ensure we tackle this evolving threat, this poisonous narrative.”

Lord Ahmed said that through its new Counter-Extremism Strategy the government will look at the behavioural aspects of people to ensure it can identify extremism “before it becomes violent, before we see the tragedy of terrorism gripping us.” To meet the challenge, there must be a counter-narrative against for example “those that hijack the religion that I myself follow, Islam, using the internet.” Therefore, “we need to work with our communities to ensure that we can get a very positive counter-narrative, accentuating the positive features of Islam - using the very same scriptures that the extremists use in an erroneous fashion - to say No, the faith is quite different, the faith tells you the true Islam - the faith followed by over a billion people across the world, both here in the UK and globally –is a religion of peace which promotes mutual respect for other faiths and humanity in general.”

Lord Ahmad stressed that “the government cannot work alone, in a vacuum. It’s for a community effort, for the whole country, the police, the communities, the youth leaders, our faith groups to come together face up to the extremists’ narrative. “And there will be a Them and Us: there’s the Us, a nation united by the fact that we have to face up to a tyranny and those who seek to divide us, and there is Them - a despicable poisonous narrative.” 

Book review: "The Kindness of Enemies" by Leila Aboulela
Crises of identity and loyalty from Scotland to the Caucasus 

In her engrossing fourth novel, "The Kindness of Enemies", the Sudanese-British writer Leila Aboulela tackles themes of identity, jihad and Sufism. She does so through two parallel narratives, one set in contemporary Scotland and Sudan, the other in nineteenth-century Imperial Russia and the Caucasus. 
By Susannah Tarbush

Leila Aboulela's novel "The Kindness of Enemies", which is published in the UK by Weidenfeld and  Nicolson, could hardly be more topical. Its characters include a Muslim university student, Oz, who is arrested on suspicion of involvement in terrorism. His name is an abbreviation of Osama, perhaps not the most fortunate name to have in the post-9/11 era.

The arrest has serious implications for his university lecturer Natasha Wilson. In line with UK anti-terror laws, she was supposed to monitor Oz and his fellow students for signs of "vulnerability to radicalisation".

The nineteenth-century narrative revolves around the compelling historical figure of the Sufi Imam Shamil, who led tribes in the Caucasus against Russian expansionism. The novel shows him regularly consulting his revered Sufi teacher, the gentle scholar Sheikh Jamal al-Din.

 In 1839, the Russians exact a terrible price from Shamil during negotiations to end the bloody siege of his Akhulgo mountain rock fortress. They demand that he hand them his eight-year-old eldest son, Jamaleldin, as a temporary hostage.

Shamil reluctantly agrees to this demand. But after negotiations break down, the Russians fail to return Jamaleldin. They whisk him off to the imperial capital, St Petersburg, where he is brought up as a Russian officer and gentleman. Tsar Nicholas I tells him: "You will rule Dagestan and Chechnya on my behalf. No one will be able to win the tribes' loyalty and trust more than Shamil's son ...You will be my mouthpiece in the Caucasus."

review continues at Qantara.de...

When Palestinian-British writer and lawyer Selma Dabbagh's debut novel Out of It was published in the UK by Bloomsbury in 2011, it received much praise from reviewers and was hailed as breaking new ground in Palestinian literature. Now Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing (BQFP) has published the Arabic translation, by Kholoud Amr, under the title Ghaza Taht al-Jild (Gaza Under the Skin).

The Tanjara spoke to both the author and the translator about the translation process.

Interview with Selma Dabbagh

How were you and your translator "paired up" for the purposes of translating Out of It into Arabic? 

I knew very little about Kholoud. I understood that she was Palestinian, had worked in journalism as well as a translator and that she was highly regarded. Apart from that, I had very little information about her. BQFP  identified her as someone suitable to translate the book. They sent a sample of her work to my [Palestinian] father, who thought it was of a good standard, and so we started to work together.

How much were you as the author involved in the translation process? Did you meet the translator, were you in touch by email, Skype etc over points in the text? Were the facts of your own background and knowledge of at least spoken Arabic helpful?

We had minimal e-mail communication. It didn’t seem necessary. Some of the texts of the Arabic verse etc. I had provided previously. I had also given explanatory notes, so there was little need to communicate directly with me. My father was in communication with Kholoud more than I was with regards to the text itself. My reading of Arabic is very weak now and I could not review the translation of the text myself. I am not sure that my knowledge of spoken Arabic was helpful although it may have made some of the translation of dialogue easier for Kholoud, as I would often think of the sentence in Arabic, but write it in English. In some ways it is as though the book has been translated back into its original language, as many of the conversations that take place in the book were visualized as having been spoken in Arabic.

What, if any, were the main difficulties in the translation process?

There were many difficulties in the translation process, but most of these were before Khuloud Amr came on board. Hers was not the first translation of Out of It, which was initially due to come out at the same time as the English edition (in December 2011). But the publication date was set back again and again. BQFP was a new company, and underwent several significant management changes between 2011-2015, and the translation of Out of It was one project that bore the brunt of many of these changes. The first translation of was by a well established translator and it was completed in early 2012. I gave it to my father and some friends to read, and they thought it was strong. My father just queried some sections, feeling that they were too literal and lacked the style of the original English. These comments were submitted in hard copy, then everything went silent. I had had good communications with this original translator, whom I liked enormously and found very professional in my dealings with him. However for some reason between 2013-2014 the whole project stalled, my father’s comments on a hard copy manuscript temporarily got lost, everyone seemed to be blaming everyone else and I was losing the will to live when it came to the Arabic translation. Then Fakhri Nawadha was appointed as the Arabic language editor, Bianca Saporti, who was also at BQFP at the time stepped in, a fuss was made, Kholoud was found (as was the marked up manuscript) and everything started to come together again. I am delighted with the end result.


Given that the book was first written for readers of English, some of whom may not know much about Palestine, Gaza and so on, did you feel any need to rework or edit any sentences or section for the new Arabic-reading audience?

No, this wasn’t necessary with Out of It, partly because I had deliberately written it for ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders.’ I believe there are references or, if you like, subliminal messages, in the novel that only a Palestinian readership might pick up on, but they were only included if I felt that they would not distract for any other kind of reader. 

How did you arrive at the final title in Arabic? There seems to have been a different Arabic title initially.

The title was a really hard one to translate. At a British Council translation workshop in Qatar in 2012 we wrangled over the title for ages in a bar after one of the sessions with Marilyn Booth and others. The English title Out of It is tough to translate. ‘It’ refers to three things (a) being out of Gaza (b) being out of the struggle and (c) being out of your mind (i.e. stoned). I liked it because it is contemporary and did not refer specifically to Gaza or Palestine, as I felt the issues being dealt with were not just Palestinian issues. Initially we had working titles of 'Khurooj min Hunaak', then 'Khurooj min Ghaza' (the publisher insisted that Gaza was in the title), then management changed and I pushed for ‘Barra’ as in outside, but some people thought this was too colloquial and would not be understood in every dialect and that it was too vague. The novelist Sahar Khalifeh, who gave a wonderful endorsement to the Arabic edition. suggested ‘Gazan Skies,’ based on the name of the first section, which I liked due to the sense of openness and possibilities, but then Fakhri Nawadha suggested, ‘Gaza Under The Skin,’ which captured perfectly the idea of a place being with you even when you are out of it etc which is one of the main ideas the novel deals with. Most Arabs have their own Gaza now. Even if they are not Palestinian at all, so Ghaza Taht al-Jild it was.

How have Arabic readers - including your father - responded to the translation?
 My father thought it was great. He was very impressed by Kholoud Amr’s work and the way that the novel read. It is too early to know how others will receive the work. Sahar Khalifeh considered it a good translation too and was excited about its introduction to Arabic language readers.

Have you had reviews of the Arabic translation in any Arabic newspapers or other media yet, and if so, what were some of the main points?
There have been some reviews, but these have stayed quite close to Bloomsbury Qatar’s press release. It is early days, but I would love to read more considered reviews by an Arabic readership.

Has Out of It been translated into any other languages besides Arabic? 
Not yet, but we are in negotiations with an Italian publishing house. Some of my other short stories and other pieces have been translated into Mandarin, Spanish, French and Dutch, but there was little interest in the translation rights for Out of It, I am not sure why that was the case.

Will the fact that you are now published in Arabic translation lead you to keep in mind readers of Arabic as well as readers of English in your future writing?
 It is half of me. I could not forget Arab or Palestinian readerships even if I chose to do so

What you are working on now, in fiction or non-fiction?
I am currently finalizing my second novel, We Are Here Now, which is set in a gated community in a Gulf-like state. I am also planning my third, notionally entitled, Things Are Not All As They Appear To Be, that is set in Jerusalem. I fly up and down in terms of my enthusiasm for my own work, but I am growing prouder of it. There is also a tentative plan to work on a film script, which would be wonderful. I love dialogue. Writing is always a challenge and I hope to continue to develop, to improve and to push back boundaries as I go along.

Interview with Kholoud Amr

How did your own background help you in the translating of  Out of It?
There was a crucial factor for the smooth translation of this novel. It is the fact that both the writer and translator have a similar background. Selma is British with Palestinian roots; I am  also a British Palestinian. As a Palestinian, and as a journalist and broadcaster who has worked for BBC and various media, I had  deep knowledge about the subject matter of the novel. Many of the historical events of the novel were lived and covered by me in my capacity as a reporter, news producer and filmmaker. Also, the fact that I lived half of her life in the Arab World and the other half in Britain helped a lot in my being familiar with the novel’s type of characters and with the physical characteristics of different places where the events of the novel were unfolding. I was even familiar with the Arab Gulf and its culture- the third area after Gaza and Britain where the events of the novel take place- as I had also worked in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. The familiarity with the British environment and the Palestinian/ Arab environment made the translation process smooth. It greatly helped me in imagining the scenes of the novel, the characters, and the different objects…etc. This was crucial for parts of the novel where there were cultural differences or where the novel was talking about something in the British context that does not exist in the Arab’s. I have had more than twenty years of experience in translation, journalism, broadcasting and film criticism, and have worked with Al-Sharq Al-Awsat newspaper and the BBC in London, and Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya TV stations in the Gulf. In addition to my degree in history I have two masters degrees, one in translation and another in filmmaking. I have translated into Arabic books by Noam Chomsky and Anthony Giddens, and numerous New York Times and Washington Post op-eds.

What for you were the main difficulties in the translation process?

One main difficulty was the lack of Arabic equivalents for some British cultural references pertaining to clothing, gardening, music and singing. I  had to use explanatory and descriptive language, rather than an exact wordy equivalent, to convey the meaning. For example, while it is easy for a British reader to imagine what brogues are as a type of shoes, the average Arab reader won’t have a clue. Also, there were what might be called the classical translation difficulties; the translation of proverbs, idioms, puns and jokes.

Given that the book was first written for an English-reading audience, did you find difficulty in translating for an Arabic readership? 

When Bloomsbury approached me to do the translation I had a little worry. It was whether this novel would appeal to an Arab audience or not. I told Bloomsbury that I needed to read the novel before deciding whether to do the translation. Before even finishing the novel my worries were ended:  I liked the novel a lot and decided to go for the translation. What motivated me was my belief that Out of It is actually very relevant to Arab readers, as much as it is for the English-speaking ones. It represents the Palestinian as a human being with all its faculties and pitfalls; dares to tackle with honesty and openness the psychological impact of the occupation on the people, even if they were extremely shameful. This is unlike much of the Arabic literature that shies away from taking that task and keeps depicting the Palestinian as a perfect hero who has no doubts or emotional troubles. Selma’s depiction of the Palestinian is more rounded and realistic. It does more justice to the Palestinians who I think have become tired of being depicted as either perfect heroes or perfect victims. Selma deserves all the credit for being able to write a novel for English- reading audience that is also translatable to Arabic without any major rework. The novel’s text functioned brilliantly both ways, in English and Arabic. For example, when the text explains the ‘preventive detention’ commonly practiced by Israeli military it is very informative for the English reader as well as to most of the Arab readers. Even references to the events of the Intifada and peace process are informative for English-readers while the way they were presented, Intifada communiqués, made them interesting and emotionally charging for the Arab readers.

interviews conducted by Susannah Tarbush, London

A Masterpiece of post-9/11 literature
extracts from a review by Susannah Tarbush, for Banipal magazine 


My Torturess by Bensalem Himmich, translated by Roger Allen
Syracuse University Press, Syracuse, New York, 2015.
225pp Pbk £18.50/$19.95 
ISBN: 978 0 8156 1047 2 (pbk) 978 0 8156 5317 2 (ebook)

The torture by the US and its allies of detainees held without charge or trial has been a notorious aspect of the ongoing “war on terror” launched after the 9/11 attacks in the USA. This maltreatment has often followed the secret and illegal “extraordinary rendition” of suspects to another country for interrogation.

The Moroccan novelist, poet and philosopher Bensalem Himmich tackles this programme of state-sanctioned torture, abuse and rendition head-on in his powerful semi-satirical novel My Torturess, translated by Roger Allen.

The novel’s first-person protagonist Hamuda is a blameless and scholarly bookseller from the Moroccan town of Oujda. His ordeal begins when he is dragged from his bookstore by three masked men claiming to be from the secret police. They inject him with drugs, put him aboard a helicopter and dress him in a blue uniform. On arrival at the prison where he spends the next six years Hamuda’s identity becomes merely prisoner number 112. He never discovers the location of the prison, nor even which country it is in.

The novel was first published in Arabic in 2010 by Dar Al-Shurouq in Cairo under the title Mu’adhdhibati, the female form of the noun making clear the torturer’s gender. But when the novel was shortlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF) 2011, IPAF rendered the title in English as the gender-neutral “My Tormenter”.

Allen was keen to restore gender in the title of his translation, and thus chose the word “torturess”. In his illuminating afterword he notes that unlike “actress” and other nouns feminised by the “–ess” suffix, “torturess” does not appear in the English dictionary.

The torturess is the dreaded Mama Ghula, who inflicts a variety of tortures on Hamuda. She can be seen as symbolic of a system of repression which perverts those very values of freedom, human rights and justice which the war on terror was claimed to defend.

The involvement of women in torture, some of it sexual, has been a recurring feature of the war on terror. An early shocking example came after the 2003 invasion of Iraq when photographs leaked from Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad showed US army reservist Lynndie England posing gleefully with tortured and naked detainees. There have been many other examples.

******
The judge wants information on Hamuda’s militant cousin al-Husayn al-Masmudi, of whose activities Hamuda is in fact ignorant. After the judge fails to force any confession from Hamuda, he is passed into the hands of Mama Ghula. His first torture session includes her raping him anally with a bottle after burning him with a cigarette on various parts of his body.

In a chapter entitled “In My Torturer’s Bed: A night of Debauchery and Terror”, Hamuda tells of his horror on waking from a drugged sleep to find himself in bed with Mama Ghula. She tells him that while sleeping he has married and had sex with her, and that she intends to bear his son.

After Hamuda expresses disbelief, she “proceeded to do things with me that I could never have conceived, even in my wildest nightmares. In fact, she assaulted and raped me, showing superior skill and a whorish professionalism in the process. I kept screaming in shame, and begging for help, but she stopped me by kicking my bandaged leg, which had not fully healed yet.” Mama Ghula forces three bottles of wine down Hamuda’s throat while uttering insults such as “God curse your mother’s religion” and “Whoever said you’re going to heaven, you little bastard?” They are joined by a midget with a long silvery beard who tells dirty jokes and stories.

Hamuda’s prolonged descriptions of torture are almost unbearable to read. And yet the novel is lightened by Hamuda’s intelligence and sharp eye for absurdity. There is a grace about the man and a beauty in his flow of observations.

The culpability of the US and its allies is made clear at various points in the novel. A detainee describes Mama Ghula as “the professional torturess, who’s an expert in all kinds of degradation. The worst of them she’s learnt in specialized foreign centres, but she’s also invented others of her own that she delights in testing on imprisoned subjects like you and me.”

The investigating judge privately condemns Mama Ghula. He tells Hamuda: “She should be punished not merely for what she’s done to you but also because, when it comes to monstrous conduct and illicit behaviour, she has no peer; when it comes to terror and violence, no one else comes even close.But how can I be blamed when Uncle Sam has written her a blank check? What am I supposed to do? The Yankees have given her a green light – in fact it’s so green that there’s nothing fresher and greener.”

******
Allen’s vigorous translation of My Torturess once again shows his particular affinity with Himmich’s rich, multilayered prose. He conveys the novel’s wide range of registers and vocabulary, from slang and the scatological to theology and poetic meditation, as well as its wordplay. The novel has verve and pace and is darkly entertaining. The glossary provided by Allen is invaluable for understanding the literary and religious works and personalities referenced in the text, and as for Qur’anic references, the source of each is provided in square brackets within the text.

My Torturess deserves to be considered as a masterpiece of post-9/11 literature as well as a major contribution to Arab and world literature. With its exploration of abusive practices in the war on terror it raises some of the most vital questions in the world today.
The review can be read in full in Banipal issue 54: previewed here

British-Lebanese poet-scholar Omar Sabbagh enters fiction arena with Via Negativa: A Parable of Exile

The 34-year-old British-Lebanese writer and academic Dr Omar Sabbagh has in the past few years gained a growing reputation as a poet, essayist and literary critic. Now he makes his first entry into fiction, with the publication of his novella Via Negativa: A Parable of Exile.

The 92-page novella is set in Beirut over a period of seven days, with each chapter covering a day. Its central character Dr Yusuf Ghaleez is a young Lebanese academic in his first-ever university job, teaching literature at the American University of Beirut (AUB). Sabbagh was himself a Visiting Assistant Professor of Literature at the AUB for two years. He currently has an assistant professorship in English at the American University in Dubai, where he recently launched the novella with a public reading. He will be visiting Beirut from 20 December to 2 January, and may do a further reading there.

Via Negativa is published by Liquorice Fish, a new imprint of the Welsh publisher Cinnamon Press. Liquorice Fish aims “to encourage and foster new writing that is vibrant, playful, transgressive, radical and, yes, just plain beautiful, wherever it might be found.”

Sabbagh’s lyrical prose style reflects his talent as a poet. It has a rich use of language and mingles memories, anecdotes, dreams, reflections and “stories within stories”. There is also a considerable amount of humour in the writing: Via Negativa is a sort of tragi-comedy.

The novella begins with a dizzying three-page description of colourful, busy and varied Beirut and of Yusuf’s somewhat chaotic state of mind as he walks along Abdul-Aziz Street. Yusuf has various troubles, including the fact that he does not have a girlfriend, nor has he had a romantic or sexual relationship for more than three years. The book has several loosely-connected narrative threads, one of which involves Yusuf’s best student, Karim Faris. Aged 22, Karim is somewhat older than the other students in the class. This is because at the age of 19 he had had a mental breakdown and lost a year of his studies while he recovered.

Yusuf has encouraged Karim to write about his problems. Karim has already told his fellow students about his psychotic breakdown. “This way, at a pragmatic level, you are taking control of your own story,” Yusuf says. “Now I want you to make that story into art!”

So Karim writes a story about a young man called Bassel , which Yusuf reads out to the class. Bassel had become infatuated by a girl he had seen in a library, and he goes to the library daily hoping to catch a glimpse of her. “Laying eyes on her for the first time in a day was like dying for a few moments – where dying wasn’t death, but a more intense kind of living.”


Bassel is actually based on Karim himself, and the girl is an Egyptian Karim had seen and fallen for in the Jafet Library in his first year at AUB. Four years on she has graduated and returned to Cairo, but Karim is still obsessed with her and she appears repeatedly in his writings.

The day after Yusuf reads out Karim’s story, Karim emails Yusuf a sort of confessional diary in which he writes that some of his friends and their girlfriends think he is gay but he does not think he is. He also describes various unsatisfactory sexual encounters with women. Yusuf arranges to meet Karim in Yusuf’s favourite bar, Hemingway’s, and Karim admits that he is of a “womanly nature”, but their conversation is interrupted by Yusuf’s colleague Teymour. The next day Karim tells Yusuf that he had been “temporarily insane” and that he is not in fact “that way”. At a later point in the novella Karim emails Yusuf a story about Yusuf himself set in London, where Karim knows Yusuf grew up.

Another main storyline in Via Negativa revolves around Robbie, the Christian-Palestinian head barman in Hemingway’s where Yusuf habitually drinks the Polish Zhubrowka vodka – with a picture of a bison on the label – to which one of his maternal uncles introduced him.

Robbie tells Yusuf various details of his life. His mother is Lebanese, and he did not know he was a Palestinian until he was fifteen. Most of the pupils at his school were Christian, and supporters of the Lebanese Front, and was only when his grandfather saw him on TV taking part in a Lebanese Front demonstration, and was furious with him, that he exclaimed to Robbie, “Don’t you know you’re Palestinian?” He also tells Yusuf of how his relationship with his wife Marie-Rose had started as a Romeo and Juliet type of love story when they were both teenagers and her parents kept trying to split them up.

Another main character in the novella is Yusuf’s lecherous older teaching colleague Teymour, a fun-loving married man of Afghan origin with a family back in the UK who boasts of his sexual conquests of students and makes wine from dried figs.

Yusuf’s parents live in a plush third-floor flat overlooking Verdun Street and members of his family feature in the narrative. They include his striking-looking mother with sea-green eyes and tanned skin and his two maternal uncles, one of whom had recently died. The family has a flat in southern Spain and Yusuf recalls a conversation there between him and one of his mother’s women friends. “Look at your generation!” she had said. “You young people have a million, a trillion options. You are so lucky...” To which he had replied: “Yes Auntie, but I guarantee you: your generation was and is a happier generation.”

Reading Via Negativa may raise questions in the reader's mind as to how far it is autobiographical. Certainly there are some points of correspondence between Sabbagh, Yusuf and in some instances, Karim. Sabbagh was born in London in 1981 to Mohamad and Maha Sabbagh who had left Lebanon in 1975 and settled in the British capital. They moved back to Beirut in 2006.

Sabbagh’s academic career has developed alongside his burgeoning career as a poet. Cinnamon Press published Sabbagh’s first two poetry collections: My Only Ever Oedipal Complaint (2010 -  reviewed on this blog here) and The Square Root of Beirut (2011 - reviewed here). Agenda Editions published his third collection, Waxed Mahogany, in 2012 (reviewed here). Cinnamon plans to publish his fourth collection To the Middle of Love in late 2016.

Sabbagh’s latest published prose work is the essay “From Bourbon to Scotch: Extracts from a Dubai Diary” which appears in the new issue of the quarterly poetry magazine Poem. He is now working on his next novel, the provisional title of which is I Decease: An Allegory from the Desert.
Susannah Tarbush, London

The International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF), announced today that the  longlist of IPAF 2016 - worth a total of $60,000 to the winner - will be revealed in a week's time, on Tuesday 12 January. The longlist will comprise 16 novels chosen from 159 entries from18 countries, all published within the last 12 months, submitted by 82 publishers. The number of entries has dropped by 21, approximately 12%,from the figure of 180 last year, although the number of countries has increased by 3 from last year's 15. Of the 2016 entries, 38 (24%) are by female writers, while 49 (31%) of the authors are under 40: representation of both categories has been steadily increasing since the Prize began, IPAF notes.

The identities of the five members of the IPAF 2016 judging panel will - as is customary with IPAF - not be revealed until the IPAF 2016 six-book shortlist is announced in Muscat, Oman, on Tuesday 9 February. 
The winner will be announced at ceremony in Abu Dhabi, on Tuesday 26 April 2016 to coincide with the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair. The announcement will be followed by a post-ceremony press conference with the 2016 winner, at the same venue.

IPAF  is awarded for prose fiction in Arabic, with the winner receiving $50,000 plus the $10,000 that goes to each shortlisted finalist. The Prize was  launched in Abu Dhabi, UAE, in April 2007, and is supported by the Booker Prize Foundation in London and funded by the TCA Abu Dhabi in the UAE. For further information see the IPAF website at http://www.arabicfiction.org/

The Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation 2015
Winner: Paul Starkey
Commended: Jonathan Wright


The 2015 Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation is awarded to Paul Starkey for his translation of the novel The Book of the Sultan's Seal: Strange Incidents from History in the City of Mars by Youssef Rakha, published by Interlink Books. The translation won from the 29 titles - a record number -  translated by 25 translators which were submitted for the £3,000 Prize. The 2015 Prize was open to Arabic-English translations published between 1 April 2014 and 31 March 2015.


Jonathan Wright is commended for his translation of Land of No Rain by Amjad Nasser, published by Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing (BQFP).



The four judges were Robin Ostle (Chair), Emeritus Research Fellow at St John's College, Oxford; Samira Kawar, literary translator; Alastair Niven, lecturer and writer; and Susannah Tarbush, cultural journalist and blogger. They made their decision on 17 December 2015 at a meeting at the offices of the Society of Authors convened by Paula Johnson, the Administrator of the Translation Prizes, as below:

THE WINNER 
Paul Starkey for his translation of the novel The Book of the Sultan's Seal: Strange Incidents from History in the City of Mars by Youssef Rakha.

"One of the most adventurous and innovative novels to have appeared in Arabic in recent years and its English version is a tour de force of translation"

"Published at the height of the Egyptian Revolution in 2011, this is one of the most adventurous and innovative novels to have appeared in Arabic in recent years and its English version is a tour de force of translation. The book is an extraordinary exploration of the profound fragmentations and contradictions which mark the personality of the protagonist Mustafa Çorbaci, and by analogy the city and the society which he inhabits. Via a series of erratic (and on occasion, erotic) journeys through his Cairo, which is at once ancient and modern, he wrestles with the dilemmas of identity which beset this journalist, intellectual and aspiring artist. The solutions which are hinted at lie more within the rich variety and inclusiveness of Arabic culture rather than in any particular ideology.

"This text confronts the translator with extraordinary challenges. It mirrors the fundamental tension in the book between the heritage and modernity by constant reference to the classical literary tradition. The author chooses the pre-modern form of "epistles" or "treatises" for his rambling narrative, and the language of the text swings from the most formal classical Arabic to the most contemporary vernacular, along with extraordinary fusions of linguistic registers. Paul Starkey addresses these problems with great skill, and has produced a masterly English version of this riotous, chaotic and often comedic story, which is also deeply moving."

Paul Starkey commented: "It is a great honour to be offered this prize – which, as with all translation prizes, I feel really belongs to the author and the text as much as to the translator. The book is not an ‘easy read', either in Arabic or in English, and with its complex, multi-layered themes and construction, translating it presented a huge challenge. But the novel is both timely and unique, and it deserves a wider audience. I very much hope that this award will help bring an exciting new novel to the attention of many new readers."

Interlink Books publisher Michel Moushabeck commented:
 "I am thrilled to hear the news that Paul Starkey's translation of Youssef Rakha's brilliant novel The Book of the Sultan's Seal has won the 2015 Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize. For the past 30 years, Interlink has had an unwavering commitment to publishing the best of Arabic literature in translation. It is such an honour and a privilege for one of our translators to be recognized by the Prize, especially as it is the first time an Interlink title has won this prestigious award after having two runner-up titles. I've been singing the praises of Youssef Rakha's debut novel set in contemporary Egypt from the moment I read it in its original Arabic. It is fresh and compelling – Rakha writes like no other novelist I've read. And I could not be happier when Paul Starkey - in my view, one of the best translators from the Arabic working today – agreed to take on the challenging job of rendering The Book of the Sultan's Seal into English. I am pleased that his superb translation has received this well-deserved recognition and I hope that this award will bring Youssef Rakha's literary masterpiece to the attention of a larger western audience."

• Paul Starkey was Professor of Arabic and Head of the Arabic Department at Durham University, UK, until his retirement in 2012. He is a former Co-Director of the Centre for the Advanced Study of the Arab World, and is currently Vice-President of the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies. He has published widely in the field of modern Arabic literature, particularly Egyptian literature. He is the author of From the Ivory Tower: A Critical Study of Tawfiq Hakim (1987), and Modern Arabic Literature (2006), and with Julie Meisami was a co-editor of the Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature (1998). His book on the Egyptian author Sonallah Ibrahim will be published by Edinburgh University Press later in 2016.

He has translated a number of works by contemporary Arab authors including Dear Mr Kawabata by Rashid al-Daif (Quartet, 2000); Stones of Bobello by Edwar al-Kharrat (Saqi, 2005) for the European Cultural Foundation's publishing project Mémoires de la Méditerranée; Turki al-Hamad's Shumaisi (Saqi, 2005); Mansoura Ez-Eldin's Maryam's Maze (AUC Press, 2009); parts of Samuel Shimon's An Iraqi in Paris first published by Banipal magazine and Banipal Books; Mahdi Issa Saqr's East Winds, West Winds (AUC Press, 2010); and Adania Shibli's We Are All Equally Far From Love (Interlink, 2013). He has also published a large numbers of shorter translations and reviews in Banipal, of which he is a contributing editor. He is currently working on the translation of a Syrian novel, The Shell, by Mustafa Khalifa, to be published by Interlink later in 2016.


• Youssef Rakha
Youssef Rakha is the author of the novels The Crocodiles and The Book of the Sultan's Seal. He is a bilingual writer and photographer, and the editor of the blog The Sultan's Seal (yrakha.com). Born and based in Cairo, Egypt, he earned a BA in English and philosophy from Hull University, England. He is the cultural editor of Al-Ahram Weekly, the Cairo-based English-language newspaper.

COMMENDED
Jonathan Wright for his translation of the novel Land of No Rain by Amjad Nasser.

"An inspired and inspiring account of that perennial theme of the modern Arab experience: exile and return"

The judges were deeply impressed by Jonathan Wright's translation of Land of No Rain, an inspired and inspiring account of that perennial theme of modern Arab experience: exile and return. The narrative is that of the protagonist's return after twenty years in exile to a fictional Arab country where the body politic is dominated by a military dictatorship totally intent on the perpetuation of its repressive rule. Through its taut, succinct language, the reader is confronted by a succession of interlocking themes such as the workings of memory, the divided self of the narrator, and the manner in which individuals cope with threatening power in an atmosphere of constant imminent danger.

 "The outstanding feature of this book is its highly poetically charged prose which Jonathan Wright has rendered into English with a sureness of stylistic touch which does complete justice to the Arabic original."

 Jonathan Wright commented:
"I was delighted to hear that the judges decided to commend Amjad Nasser's book. The novel was one of the most subtle and intelligent literary works I've had the pleasure to translate. It is full of perceptive observations on the effects of exile on the individual and the impossibility of ever going home unchanged. It explores identity, change and the process of aging in innovative ways and simultaneously reflects the intellectual conflicts that dominated the Arab world in the late 20th century. Amjad writes with the economy and sensitivity of a poet to evoke a succession of cities across the Middle East and Europe over the past several decades. By placing the events in a nebulous allegorical framework he gives them a universal significance they might not otherwise have. I hope that the commendation encourages more people to read and enjoy Land of No Rain."

And from Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing, Fakhri Saleh, Head of Arabic Publishing at BQFP (now known as Hamad bin Khalifa University Press) commented: "We are very proud to work with such talented translators and writers as Jonathan Wright and Amjad Nasser. Providing access to literary works and authors from across the world through excellent translations is at the very heart of what we do at the press, and we are very proud that one of our titles has been honoured by the highly-esteemed Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation."

•Jonathan Wright
Jonathan Wright studied Arabic, Turkish and Islamic History at St. John's College, Oxford University. Between 1980 and 2009 he worked for Reuters news agency mainly in the Middle East. His latest literary translations include Land of No Rain by Amjad Nasser (BQFP, 2014), commended for the 2015 Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize, and The Bamboo Stalk by Saud Alsanousi (BQFP, 2015), whose original Arabic edition won the 2013 International Prize for Arabic Fiction. He was joint winner of the 2013 Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for his translation of the novel Azazeel by Youssef Ziedan (Atlantic Books, 2012), whose original Arabic edition won the 2009 IPAF, and in 2014 he won the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize for his translation of The Iraqi Christ by Hassan Blasim (Comma Press, 2013). He was a judge of the 2014 Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize.

Wright's first literary translation, from Egyptian colloquial dialect, was Khaled al-Khamissi's Taxi (2009). Further literary translations include Hassan Blasim's The Madman of Freedom Square (Comma Press, 2009); Judgement Day by Rasha al-Ameer (AUC Press, 2012); Life on Hold by Fahd al-Atiq (AUC Press, 2012); Sleepwalkers by Said Makkawi (Dar el-Shorouk); and Bahaa Abdelmegid's Temple Bar (AUC Press, 2014).


• Amjad Nasser
Amjad Nasser was born in Jordan in 1955. He is a major contributor to today's Arab poetry scene and prior to his debut novel Land of No Rain, has published many volumes of poetry and four travel memoirs. He was managing editor and cultural editor of Al-Quds Al-Arabi daily newspaper for many years, and has judged a number of literary prizes, including the International Prize for Arabic Fiction.

His first volume of poetry in English translation was Shepherd of Solitude (translated by Khaled Mattawa and published by Banipal Books, 2009). He has won many prizes for his poetry and performed at festivals around the world. Selected poems have been translated into English, Spanish and French

Join Banipal Magazine for Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize celebration at Waterstones Piccadilly
on Thursday 18 February


Paul Starkey - winner of the Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation for his translation of Youssef Rakha's novel The Book of the Sultan's Seal: Strange Incidents from History in the City of Mars - will be in conversation with Rakha

from 6.30pm, for the 7.00pm start

Waterstones Piccadilly Bookstore 203/206 Piccadilly, London W1J 9HD

With Readings from The Book of the Sultan's Seal, plus Q and A, Reception and Book Signing

 • This is a free event, but please reserve your place by emailing piccadilly@waterstones.com.

LONGLIST OF THE INTERNATIONAL PRIZE FOR ARAB FICTION
The International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF) today revealed the longlist of 16 novels in contention for the 2016 prize. They were chosen from 159 entries from 18 countries, all published within the last 12 months.

In a pre-longlist statement issued a week ago, IPAF stressesed the representation of women and youth among the entries. Of the total entries, 38 (24 percent) were by women, but only two of these have made the longlist. Forty-nine (31 percent) of the entries, were by authors under 40, of which three have got through to the longlist.

The prize is worth a total of $60,000 to the winner: the $50,000 main award plus the $10,000 that goes to each shortlisted author. Delivering on its aim to increase the international reach of Arabic fiction, the Prize also guaratees English translation for the winning title.

This is the ninth year of the Prize, recognised as the leading award for literary fiction in the Arab world. It  is run with the support of the Booker Prize Foundation in London and funding from the Abu Dhabi Tourism and Culture Authority (TCA Abu Dhabi). It also enjoys support from the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair and Etihad Airways

The longlist was selected by a panel of five judges, whose names will be announced in Muscat, Oman, on Tuesday 9 February 2016, along with the six-title shortlist. The winner will be announced at an awards ceremony in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday 26 April 2016, the eve of the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair.

The highest number of 2016 longlisted authors come from Egypt and Palestine, with three from Egypt together with two from Palestine and one from Palestine/Jordan. There are two writers from each of Morocco, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon; and one from each of Kuwait and Sudan.

Two of the longlisted authors have been shortlisted for the prize previously: Rabai al-Madhoun and Mohamed Mansi Qandil both appeared on the IPAF shortlist in 2010, with al-Madhoun’s book, The Lady from Tel Aviv, now available in English translation from Telegram Books. Another longlisted writer, Taleb Alrefai, was Chair of the IPAF Judges that year.

The list includes a number of younger writers and debut novelists. Three longlisted writers are less than 40 years old, and first novels by two Moroccan authors - Tareq Bakari and Abdennour Mezzine - are included. Two longlisted authors – Mohamed Rabie (from Egypt) and Shahla Ujayli (Syria) – have participated in IPAF’s annual nadwa, or writers’ workshop, for emerging writers with promise. Ujayli worked on a section of her longlisted book, A Sky Close to Our House, during the 2014 nadwa.

The as yet unnamed Chair of Judges comments: “The task of choosing this year's longlist was not easy given the high quality of overall submissions, which featured many young, unknown writers in addition to well-established names. However, a strong longlist has emerged, with many of the titles dealing with their subjects in fresh and unconventional ways and using experimental language.

"The books look at topical concerns from the Arab world – from daily life to larger political and social issues – and, between them, condemn violence, sectarianism (political, religious and tribal) and current dictatorships.”

Professor Yasir Suleiman CBE, Chair of the Board of Trustees, says:
“This is an impressive longlist of novels that hail from different parts of the Arab world. They address abiding issues that touch different aspects of our humanity in vivid and often disturbing ways that challenge preconceived ideas. Technically mature and sometimes demanding, the longlist lives up to the IPAF tradition of enticing the readers into new worlds of the creative imagination.”


THE LONGLIST:
Here
by Taleb Alrefai
Kuwait
Platinum Books

Hymns of Temptation
by Laila al-Atrash
Palestine/Jordan
Difaf Publications
Numedia
by Tareq Bakari
Morocco
Dar al-Adab

The Temple of Silken Fingers
by Ibrahim Farghali
Egypt
Al-Ikhtilef

People of the Palms
by Janan Jasim Halawi
Iraq
Saqi Books

Mariam's Journey
Mahmoud Hasan al-Jasim
Syria
Dar Tanweer, Egypt

Desertified Waters
Hazim Kamaledin
Iraq
Fadaat

Destinies: Concerto of the Holocaust and the Nakba
Rabai al-Madhoun
Palestine
Maktabat Kul Shee

Letters of the Storm
Abdennour Mezzine
Morocco
Slaiki Akhawayn Publications

Warsaw a Little While Ago
Ahmed Muhsin
Lebanon
Hachette Antoine

The Prophecy of Saqqa
Hamed al-Nazir
Sudan
Dar Tanweer, Tunis

The Black Brigade
Mohamed Mansi Qandil
Egypt
Dar al-Shorouq

Mercury
Mohamed Rabie
Egypt
Dar Tanweer, Lebanon

Praise for the Women of the Family
Mahmoud Shukair
Palestine
Hachette Antoine

A Sky Close to Our House
Shahla Ujayli
Syria
Difaf Publications

The Guard of the Dead
George Yaraq
Lebanon
Difaf Publications

DETAILS OF THE LONGLISTED TITLES AND AUTHORS
Taleb Alrefai is a Kuwaiti novelist, born in 1958. He is the author of a number of works including The Shade of the Sun (1998), Petty Thefts (2011) and The Dress (2009). In 2002, he won the Kuwaiti State Prize for Literature for his novel Scent of the Sea. Between 2003 and 2008, he worked for the Kuwaiti National Council of Culture, Arts and Literature and edited the monthly arts review, Jaridat Al Funoon. He currently works as cultural advisor to the Kuwaiti Minister of Media, and teaches creative writing at the American University in Kuwait. In addition to writing fiction, he has published several literary and historical studies. He was Chair of judges for the 2010 International Prize for Arabic Fiction.


Laila al-Atrash is a Palestinian/Jordanian novelist, born in Beit Sahour, east of Bethlehem, in 1948. Her novels and short stories have been translated into several languages, including English, French, Italian, Korean, and Hebrew, and have been added to university curriculums in Jordan, France and America. In 2007, she helped to establish the Library of the Family and Reading for All projects in Jordan, and her social and cultural programmes have won numerous prizes at television and radio festivals. In the 2015 Human Development Report, she was among a small number of women writers who were deemed to have been influential in their societies. She has published a short story collection, two plays and nine novels, including: The Sun Rises in the West (1998), Two Nights...and the Shadow of A Woman (1998), Ports of Delusion (2006), Women at the Crossroads (2009) and Hymns of Temptation (2014).

In Hymns of Temptation, Rawia Abu Najma – a documentary producer who has not visited Jerusalem since the Six Day War of 1967 – obtains a special permit to return. Although she has come to sort out the affairs of an aged aunt, she secretly hopes to make a film about people's lives in the city. Through her aunt's memories and those of her friend, the wife of the custodian of the Holy Mosque, a forbidden and passionate love affair between her aunt and the priest Mitri al-Haddad comes to light. She also uncovers old disagreements between the Greek Orthodox Church, Muslims and Arab Christians in Jerusalem. Hymns of Temptation charts the social development of Jerusalem and the struggle of different peoples to control it, describing life from the period of the Ottomans and the British Mandate at the end of the 19th century to after the Israeli occupation. It is a novel of people living through times of sweeping moral, political and social change.

Tareq Bakari was born in Missour, eastern Morocco, in 1988. He graduated with a BA in Arabic Literature from Mohamed Bin Abdullah University, Fes, in 2010 and obtained a diploma from the Meknes Teacher Training College in 2011. Since then, he has worked as an Arabic language teacher in Meknes. He has published numerous articles and pieces of creative writing, both in print and online. Numedia (2015) is his first novel.

Numedia tells the life story of Murad, written by his former girlfriend Julia, a Frenchwoman. An orphan, Murad is cursed by the people of his village. Ostracised, insulted and beaten, he turns to love in an attempt to take revenge on fate: first with Khoula, who becomes pregnant; then Nidal, his classmate and fellow comrade in resistance; then Julia, seen as the French coloniser, and with his final love Numedia, the mute Berber. The rich story of Numedia unfolds against the backdrop of the real-life historical, political and religious landscape of Morocco.

Ibrahim Farghali is an Egyptian writer, born in Mansoura in 1967. He obtained a BA in Business Studies from Mansoura University and works as a journalist on the staff of Al-Arabi magazine in Kuwait. He has previously worked in the UAE and Oman, and for the Al-Ahram newspaper in Cairo. He has published three short story collections and six novels, including: The Cave of Butterflies (1998), Smiles of Saints (2004), published in English by the American University in Cairo in 2007, Genie in a Bottle (2007) and Sons of Gebalawi (2009), winner of the 2012 Sawiris Prize.

The Temple of Silken Fingers is narrated by a manuscript which is abandoned at sea by its author. The manuscript relates what happens as it tries to reunite with its author, as well as revealing the author’s past life in the UAE, Egypt and Germany. Weaved together with this are the adventures contained within the manuscript’s pages: a story of copyists fleeing a city called the City of Injustice, which is dominated by extremists ruled by the head of a censorship bureau. On its journey, the manuscript is discovered by a number of new readers: the author’s friend, pirates and an Ethiopian girl.

Janan Jasim Halawi is an Iraqi writer, born in 1956. He studied electrical engineering in Iraq and worked as a journalist in Lebanon, mainly for the Al-Nahar newspaper. He has lived in Sweden since 1992. He is the author of seven volumes of short stories, three poetry collections and six novels: Ya Kokti (1991), Night of the Land (2002), which was published in French by Actes Sud in 2005, Paths and Dust (2003), Hot Places (2006), Not Much Air (2009) and People of the Palms (2015).

People of the Palms holds a spotlight on the inhabitants of the palm groves and marshlands of Basra, Iraq. The book pulsates with stories of life and death. As Basra reels with destruction and death, the terrified Ramzi and Ahlam cut a path through the devastated city, fleeing from soldiers. Their story is just one amongst a collection of disparate tales about characters from Basra's underworld: Jodi, a worker in an old people's home, killed by the police for helping the mad Muhaidi; Johnny, the sea smuggler, forced to act as an informer for the police; Jawad, a communist, who kills the local Islamic leader, Jaafar, after he declares Communists to be apostates; Badea, an ordinary girl driven to prostitution by poverty and murdered, and Alawi, the rebellious loner who kills her murderer.

Mahmoud Hasan al-Jasim is a Syrian writer and academic, born in 1966. He taught at the College of Arts and Humanities in Aleppo, Syria, before moving in 2012 to his current post at the College of Arts and Sciences at Qatar University. He has spent more than 14 years teaching Arabic grammar and Arabic to non-native speakers. He has published three novels: Forgive Me, Mother (2014), Brazen Looks (2015) and Mariam's Journey (2015).

Mariam's Journey opens with the lines: “I am writing this story for you, Mariam. You will read the story and know and pass on the truth of what happened to us.” This is the story told by Sara Toni Jabbour to her daughter, Mariam. Sara, a Christian woman, moves to the Syrian city of Raqqa and marries Mariam’s father, a Muslim man. When fundamentalist Salafi groups sweep through Raqqa, Sara is forced – as a Christian married to a Muslim – to retreat to her family’s village. However, with Shabiha thugs in control of the area, she flees into the unknown with Mariam only to then face merciless people smugglers. Wanting to leave her daughter a true and undistorted account of their life as a family, Sara records for Mariam the joys of life with her husband and the torment of life without him. Through the story of her journey across Lebanon, Syria and Turkey, we gain an insight into the fear experienced by those forced to leave their country.

Hazim Kamaledin is an Iraqi writer and playwright, born in 1954. He has worked as an actor, director and cinematographer and is also a researcher, novelist, and short story writer. He previously lectured at the Belgian Universities of Ghent and Antwerp and supervised students on DasArts (MA theatre) courses in the Amsterdam University of the Arts. He is the former director of the Sahara 93 theatre workshop and is currently the artistic director of the Belgian Zahrat al-Sabbar theatre company.

In Desertified Waters, Hazim Kamaledin – who is both narrator and author of the novel – is murdered. Kamaledin is a filmmaker who was once famous but has been forgotten. Famous because of his film, “Desertified Waters”, which won the highest award in Saddam Hussein's Iraq: the film, intended to be critical of the regime, is cut so much by the censor that it does just the opposite. Intentionally forgotten as a result of winning the award: as those in cultural circles know the truth about how the film has been distorted, but are afraid to open up a can of worms from the past, especially since the occupation has re-imposed the forceful censorship of the past. Nobody knows the truth about his death. Some say that terrorists are responsible, others that he was a victim of a random strike at the market by the American occupying forces or those working for them.

Rabai al-Madhoun is a Palestinian writer, born in al-Majdal, Ashkelon, southern Palestine (now Israel), in 1945. During the 1948 Nakba exodus, his family emigrated to Khan Younis in the Gaza strip. He studied at Cairo and Alexandria Universities, Egypt, but was expelled from Egypt in 1970 before graduating, because of his political activities. He has worked at the Palestinian Centre for Research Studies and as a journalist and editor for many newspapers and magazines, including Al-Horria, Al-Ufuq, Sawt al-Bilad, Al-Quds al-Arabi, Al-Hayat, WTN (an American TV news network), and APTN-Associated Press. His published works include the novel The Lady from Tel Aviv (2010) - shortlisted for IPAF 2010 -  and his second novel Destinies: Concerto of the Holocaust and the Nakba (2015). The Lady from Tel Aviv was translated into English by Elliot Colla and published by Telegram Books. The book won the English PEN Writers in Translation award. He currently works as an editor for Al-Sharq Al-Awsat newspaper in London.

Destinies: Concerto of the Holocaust and the Nakba is a pioneering Palestinian novel written in four parts. Each part representing a concerto movement, the novel looks at the Palestinian exodus from Israel in 1948 (known as the ‘nakba’), the holocaust and the Palestinian right to return. Destinies: Concerto of the Holocaust and the Nakba is a novel of Palestine from outside and from within. It examines the tragedy of everyday Palestinian life, telling the story of Palestinians living under occupation and forced to assume Israeli nationality, as well as exiled Palestinians trying to return to their now-occupied home country.

Abdennour Mezzine is a Moroccan doctor and writer, born in the town of Ben Ahmed, near Chefchaouen, in 1965. In 1992, he obtained a doctorate in Medicine and since then has worked as a doctor and public health advisor in the Moroccan Ministry of Public Health. He published his first poems, written in French, in Al-Ra'i newspaper in Rabat, and then in 1992 published short stories in Arabic in the cultural supplement of the Al-Ittihad al-Ishtiraki newspaper. His book of short stories, The Mustard Gas Kiss was published in 2010, and a poetry collection Commandments of the Sea appeared in 2013. Letters of the Storm (2015) is his first novel.

Letters of the Storm tells the story of a political activist in Morocco during the ‘Years of Lead’, a period of harsh governmental control between the 1960s and 1990s. Weaving together his personal life and political life, the novel examines the protagonist’s relationships before and after his initial imprisonment in Morocco and again during a second term of imprisonment in Andalusia, during which he faces psychological trauma. Central to this is the story of the activist’s love for Ghada, a woman he knew at university but lost touch with after being arrested.

Ahmed Muhsin is a Lebanese writer, born in 1984. Since graduating in Economics from the Beirut Arab University, he has worked as a journalist for Lebanese newspapers, and published poetry and prose in specialist literary and cultural publications. Warsaw a Little While Ago is his second novel after The Maker of Games, which reached the longlist of the Sheikh Zayed Book Award (2014-15) in the Young Writers category.

Warsaw a Little While Ago is a story of identity. It tells the story of Youzef, a Jewish musician in Poland who, having escaped death in Nazi camps, decides to emigrate, first to Israel and then to Lebanon. There he marries and has a family, before returning to Warsaw years later with his grandson, Jousef. The book tells of the amorous and musical adventures of both Youzef and Jousef who, realising his grandfather's dreams for him of being a musician, learns to play the piano. Following the Israeli attack on Beirut in 2006, Jousef also finds himself torn between staying in Warsaw and emigrating to Israel like his grandfather 60 years before.

Hamed al-Nazir was born in Sudan in 1975. He currently works as a journalist in the newsroom of Qatar Television and writes for a number of newspapers and websites. Previously, he was a presenter on the Sudanese Shorouk channel, the Sudanese Blue Nile channel and Sudan radio, and was a news correspondent for MBC in Sudan. His first novel, Farij al-Murar (2014), won the Sharjah Award for Arab Creativity and the Qatar Vodafone Prize for the Novel, both in 2014.

The Prophecy of Saqqa is set in the 1960s, in the town of Ajayib in the hills of the Eritrean coast, where the "Ahfad", slaves to their masters the "Awtad", struggle for freedom. When a powerful Awtad asks to marry a beautiful woman from the Ahfad, they see the marriage as their chance for liberation, as prophesied. However, the Awtad look upon the proposed marriage with foreboding and do everything in their power to stop it from taking place. These events coincide with the early days of the Eritrean armed struggle for independence from Ethiopia. Its successes and failures and the divisions within the revolutionary leadership form the background to the events of the novel.

Mohamed Mansi Qandil is an Egyptian novelist, born in 1949 in the Egyptian delta city of al-Mahalla al-Kubra. He graduated from medical school in Mansoura in 1975, but gave up medicine, devoting himself instead to writing, and going on to win the State Incentive Prize in 1988. His works are marked by a fascination with history. His novels include Moon over Samarkand (2004) winner of the 2006 Sawiris Award, which was translated into English, and A Cloudy Day on the West Side (2009), shortlisted for IPAF 2010.  Among his other novels are Breaking of the Spirit (1992) and I Loved (2012).

The Black Brigade, set between 1863 and 1867, is a novel about love, war and destiny. The French emperor, Napoleon III, makes an agreement with Khedive Said of Egypt to transport hundreds of black slave fighters to Mexico. There, they are to be handed over to Maximilian, brother of the Austrian emperor Leopold, who travels to Mexico with his young wife Carlota amidst disturbances and revolution. The novel follows the adventures of Al-Aasi, a black slave who defies the slave traders and becomes a leader of a group of the slaves. Following a series of hardships whilst he travels from Sudan to Mexico, Al-Aasi then becomes Empress Carlota’s personal bodyguard and finally plays a role in the French Revolution and Paris Commune of 1867.

Mohamed Rabie is an Egyptian writer, born in 1978. He graduated from the Cairo faculty of engineering in 2002 and his first novel, Kawkab Anbar (2010), won first prize in the emerging writers' category of the Sawiris Cultural Award in 2012. His second novel, Year of the Dragon, was published in 2012, followed by Mercury in 2014. In 2012, he took part in the IPAF nadwa (writers' workshop) for promising young writers.

Mercury is a dark fantasy which imagines “the counter revolution" in Egypt as a reality in a nightmarish future. The eponymous hero of this fantasy novel is an officer who witnessed the defeat of the police in Cairo on 28 January 2011. Over a decade later, Egypt is occupied by a mysterious power and the remnants of the old police force are leading the popular resistance, fighting among the ruins of a shattered Cairo. It is a daily hell of arbitrary killing, an intensified version of the sporadic massacres witnessed since the famous revolution in January.

Mahmoud Shukair is a Palestinian writer, born in Jabal al-Mukabbar, Jerusalem, in 1941. He writes short stories and novels for adults and teenagers. He is the author of forty-five books, six television series, and four plays. His stories have been translated into several languages, including English, French, German, Chinese, Mongolian and Czech. He has occupied leadership positions within the Jordanian Writers' Union and the Union of Palestinian Writers and Journalists. In 2011, he was awarded the Mahmoud Darwish Prize for Freedom of Expression. He has spent his life between Beirut, Amman and Prague and now lives in Jerusalem.

Praise for the Women of the Family is a history of the women of the Al-Abd al-Lat clan, which has left the desert and is preparing to leave its Bedouin customs behind. The women of the clan struggle with these changes and many scorn those embracing modern life: when Rasmia accompanies her husband to a party, Najma wears a dress and Sana gets a tan on her white legs, they set malicious tongues wagging; meanwhile, Wadha, the sixth wife of Mannan, the chief of the clan, still believes that the washing machine and television are inhabited by evil spirits. Set after the nakba (the Palestinian exodus from what is now Israel) in a time of political and social change, the novel witnesses the rapid advance of modernity and the seeds of conflict beginning to grow in 1950s Palestine.

Shahla Ujayli is a Syrian writer, born in 1976. She holds a doctorate in Modern Arabic Literature and Cultural Studies from Aleppo University in Syria and currently teaches Modern Arabic Literature at the University of Aleppo and the American University in Madaba, Jordan. She is the author of a short story collection entitled The Mashrabiyya (2005) and two novels: The Cat's Eye (2006), which won the Jordan State Award for Literature in 2009, and Persian Carpet (2013). She has also published a number of critical studies, including The Syrian Novel: Experimentalism and Theoretical Categories (2009), Cultural Particularity in the Arabic Novel (2011) and Mirror of Strangeness: Articles on Cultural Criticism (2006). In 2014, she took part in the IPAF nadwa (writers' workshop) for promising young writers, where she worked on a passage from her 2016 longlisted novel, A Sky Close to Our House.

A Sky Close to Our House spans the second half of the 19th century to the present, featuring characters from different backgrounds who meet in Amman, Jordan, the city at the heart of the story. It is here that Jaman Badran, a Syrian immigrant, gets to know Nasr Al-Amiri, a Palestinian-Syrian who has come to Amman for his mother’s funeral. They soon discover that their grandparents were neighbours in Aleppo. Through the dramatic fall of families in Syria, Palestine, Iraq, Serbia and Vietnam, A Sky Close to Our House shows how wars can change concepts of identity and nation, and create new destinies for large numbers of people; it also underlines that mass tragedy does not in any way negate the significance of individual suffering.

George Yaraq is a Lebanese novelist, born in 1958. He has worked as an editor and freelance writer for several Lebanese newspapers and magazines, such as Al-Nahar, Al-Liwa', Al-Hayat, Al-Sayyad, and Jasad. His first novel, Night, was published in 2013.

Guard of the Dead is the story of Aabir, a hospital undertaker. Working in the morgue by day and the operating theatre by night, he learns to pluck out and sell the gold teeth he finds in the corpses’ mouths. However, he lives in a state of constant dread and apprehension, his past working for a political party and as a sniper during the Lebanese Civil War hanging over him. One day, Aabir is kidnapped from the morgue. With no idea about where he is, who has taken him or why, he finds himself searching for clues about his kidnapping in his past.


PREVIOUS IPAF WINNERS
The first eight winners of the Prize are:

2008: Sunset Oasis by Bahaa Taher (Egypt)
2009: Azazeel by Youssef Ziedan (Egypt)
2010: Spewing Sparks as Big as Castles by Abdo Khal (Saudi Arabia)
2011: The Arch and the Butterfly by Mohammed Achaari (Morocco) and The Doves' Necklace by Raja Alem (Saudi Arabia)
2012: The Druze of Belgrade by Rabee Jaber (Lebanon)
2013: The Bamboo Stalk by Saud Alsanousi (Kuwait)
2014: Frankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmed Saadawi (Iraq)
2015: The Italian by Shukri Mabkhout (Tunisia)

TRANSLATION OF IPAF WINNERS
In accordance with its aim of increasing the  international reach of Arabic fiction, IPAF guarantees English translation for the winning title. Bahaa Taher’s Sunset Oasis was translated into English by Humphrey Davies and published by Sceptre (an imprint of Hodder and Stoughton) in 2009; it has gone on to be translated into at least eight languages worldwide. Ziedan’s Azazeel, translated by Jonathan Wright,was published in the UK by Atlantic Books in April 2012, while 2013 saw the publication of Spanish translations of Baha Taher's Sunset Oasis (El Oasis) and Rabee Jaber's The Druze of Belgrade (Los Drusos de Belgrado) by Madrid-based publisher Turner. English translations of Abdo Khal's (translated by Maïa Tabet and Michael K. Scott) and Mohammed Achaari’s (translated by Aida Bamia) winning novels were published in 2014 by Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing (BQFP).

Saud Alsanousi’s The Bamboo Stalk (BQFP), in Jonathan Wright's translation, was published in 2015 and Raja Alem’s novel, The Doves’ Necklace (Duckworth), will be published in March this year, translated by Adam Talib and Katherine Halls. 2014 IPAF winner Frankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmed Saadawi has also secured English publication with Oneworld in the UK and Penguin Books in the US, in Jonathan Wright's translation.

The five-member judging panel of the £10,000 Caine Prize for African Writing 2016  was announced today in London. The panel, comprising four women and one man, is chaired by the distinguished author and broadcaster Delia Jarrett-Macauley. She is joined by the acclaimed film, television and voice actor, Adjoa Andoh; the writer and founding member of the Nairobi based writers’ collective, Storymoja, and founder of the Storymoja Festival, Muthoni Garland; Associate Professor and Director of African American Studies at Georgetown University, Washington DC, Dr Robert J Patterson; and South African writer, and 2006 Caine Prize winner, Mary Watson.


The Caine Prize has been awarded annually since 2000 for a short story of 3,000 to 10,000 words by an African writer published in English. An 'African writer’ is defined as someone who was born in Africa, or who is a national of an African country, or who has a parent who is African by birth or nationality.

Announcing the judging panel, Delia Jarrett-Macauley, said: “I'm delighted to be chairing the 2016 Caine Prize judging panel. 2015 was an impressive year for the Caine Prize, with record entries, a excellent shortlist and marvellous winner. I look forward to joining my fellow judges to read some equally impressive stories this year.”

The deadline for the submission of stories for this year's prize is 31 January. Last year a record 153 qualifying stories were submitted to the judges, from 17 African countries. The judges will meet in April to decide on this year’s shortlisted stories, which will be announced shortly thereafter. In addition to the winner's £10,000 prize, £500 will be awarded to each shortlisted writer. The winning story will be announced at a dinner at the Bodleian Library in Oxford on Monday 4 July 2016.

The judges:

Delia Jarrett-Macauley (DMS, Ph.D., FRSA, Chair of the Judges, is an accomplished writer, academic and broadcaster with a career spanning over 25 years. Her impressive body of work is held in high regard both nationally and internationally. Delia is also a member of the Caine Prize Council and served as a judge in 2007. She is the author of the literary biography The life of Una Marson 1905-1965, and of the novel Moses, Citizen and Me, which won the Orwell Prize in 2006.



Muthoni Garland has published twenty books for children, two novellas for adults, and several stories published in literary journals and in the anthology, 'Helicopter Beetles,' which is available on Amazon as an e book. She is also a storyteller and has appeared on stage in several countries. Muthoni is a founder member of the writer's collective, Storymoja, which aggressively preaches the gospel of reading for pleasure. Storymoja runs several projects promoting reading among children, including the bi-annual National Read Aloud, which in 2015, broke the world record of people reading from the same text on the same day at the same time. Storymoja also organises the Storymoja Festival in Nairobi.


Robert J. Patterson is an associate professor of African American studies and English and director of the African American Studies Program at Georgetown University. He is the author of Exodus Politics: Civil Rights and Leadership in African American Literature and Culture (University of Virginia Press 2013), and co-editor of The Psychic Hold of Slavery: Legacies in American Culture (Rutgers University Press 2016). His work appears in South Atlantic Quarterly, Black Camera, Religion and Literature, The Cambridge Companion to African American Women's Writing, the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, and the Cambridge Companion to Civil Rights Literature. He also co-guest-edited a special edition of South Atlantic Quarterly on "Black Literature, Black Leadership." Extending his scholarly interests in the post-civil rights era, black popular culture, and the politics of race and gender, Patterson has begun work on a second book, It's Just Another Sad Love Song: R and B Music and the Politics of Race.


Mary Watson is the author of Moss (2004), The Cutting Room (2013) and several short stories in anthologies. She won the Caine Prize in 2006 for her story "Jungfrau". A lapsed academic, Mary did an MA in Creative Writing under the mentorship of André Brink, before completing a doctorate in Film Studies. Born in Cape Town, she currently lives in Ireland. She was a finalist for the Rolex Mentor/Protégé Initiative in 2012, and in 2014 she was included in the Hay Festival's Africa39 list of promising writers under forty.


Adjoa Andoh is a highly acclaimed and well-established actress of film, television, radio and theatre and is of Ghanaian decent. In 2009, she appeared in the Clint Eastwood movie Invictus as Nelson Mandela's Chief of Staff. She is also a familiar face on British television and has appeared on Doctor Who as Francine Jones and also had a long standing role as Colette Griffiths in Casualty. She is known on the UK stage for lead roles at the RSC, the National Theatre, the Royal Court Theatre and the Almeida Theatre. Andoh is the voice of Alexander McCall Smith's No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency; she won "Audio Book of the Year" for Tea Time for the Traditionally Built. She has already judged several prizes including the Bafta TV panel, the Carlton Hobbs/ Norman Beaton BBC radio Award, the Susan Blackburn Award, and the Alfred Fagon Award.


The five shortlisted stories, alongside stories written at the Caine Prize workshop - the 2016 workshop is to be held in Zambia in March - are published annually by New Internationalist (UK), Jacana Media (South Africa), Lantern Books (United States), Kwani? (Kenya), Sub-Saharan Publishers (Ghana), FEMRITE (Uganda), Bookworld Publishers (Zambia), Langaa Research and Publishing (Cameroon) and ‘amaBooks (Zimbabwe). Books are available from the publishers or from the Africa Book Centre, African Books Collective or Amazon.

“The Sack” by Namwali Serpell, the first-ever Zambian Caine prizewinner, won last year's prize, and is included in the Caine Prize 2015 anthology, Lusaka Punk.  Chair of the 2015 Caine Prize judges Zoë Wicomb praised the story, when it won, saying, “From a very strong shortlist we have picked an extraordinary story about the aftermath of revolution with its liberatory promises shattered. It makes demands on the reader and challenges conventions of the genre. It yields fresh meaning with every reading. Formally innovative, stylistically stunning, haunting and enigmatic in its effects. ‘The Sack’ is a truly luminous winner of the Caine Prize for African Writing.”

The Caine Prize is named after the late Sir Michael Caine, former Chairman of Booker plc and Chairman of the Booker Prize management committee for nearly 25 years. It is supported by The Oppenheimer Memorial Trust, The Miles Morland Foundation, The Carnegie Corporation, the Booker Prize Foundation, Sigrid Rausing and Eric Abraham, Prudential Plc, The Beit Trust, CSL Stockbrokers, the Morel Trust, The British Council, The Wyfold Charitable Trust, the Royal Over-Seas League, Commonwealth Writers, an initiative of the Commonwealth Foundation, Adam and Victoria Freudenheim, John and Judy Niepold, Arindam Bhattacherjee and other generous donors. 

Following its announcement that Paul Starkey has won the Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation 2015 for his translation of Youssef Rakha's debut novel The Book of the Sultan's Seal: Strange Incidents from History in the City of Mars (Interlink Books), with Jonathan Wright  commended for his translation of Amjad Nasser's debut novel Land of No Rain (Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing - BQFP), the Banipal Trust for Arab Literature has announced the following details of the  Award Ceremony of Translation Prizes:

Wednesday 17 February
The Award Ceremony of Translation Prizes from Arabic, Dutch, French, German, Spanish and Swedish
6.15pm 
at
Europe House, 
32 Smith Square, 
London SW1P 3EU

Introduced by Paula Johnson, Prize Administrator, the Society of Authors
Prizes presented by judges of the prizes, with readings by the winning translator.

Following the readings, novelist and critic Adam Mars-Jones will be in conversation with fiction and  journalism writer, and performer, A. L. Kennedy.

The Translation Prizes are administered by the Society of Authors, which will host the Award Ceremony

When Translating Libya: The Modern Libyan Short Story by Ethan Chorin was first published in 2008  by London publisher Saqi, in association with the London Middle East Institute at SOAS, it was hailed as a welcome addition to the bafflingly small corpus of Libyan literature in English translation. And the book was most timely, produced just as Libya was “coming in from the cold” after years of international isolation and sanctions. Chorin was himself a member of the small team of US diplomats which went out to Tripoli after US-Libyan relations were restored in July 2004. (I reviewed the book for Qantara.de in September 2008).

The book comprised sixteen stories by fifteen Libyan authors, translated by Chorin (in three cases jointly with Basem Tulti), together with Chorin’s engaging essays and jottings on Libyan short stories and his adventures while searching for them. The stories were selected and organised on a geographical basis: to be considered for inclusion the stories should be descriptive and should mention specific places. The authors ranged from pioneers of the Libyan short story such as Wahbi Bouri, Kamel Hassan Maghur, Ali Mustapha Misrati, Sadiq Neihoum and Ahmed Ibrahim Fagih to writers from a later generation, including Abdullah Ali Al-Ghazal and Meftah Genaw, and emerging women writers Najwa Ben Shatwan, Maryam Ahmed Salama and Lamia El-Makki.

Now Darf Publishers of London has published a revamped and updated edition of the book. It is appropriate that Darf should be the publisher of the new edition. Founded in 1980, it is the English-language imprint of Libyan publisher and bookseller Dar Fergiani, which dates back to 1952. In Translating Libya Chorin describes his fruitful visits to one of Fergiani’s two bookstores in Tripoli and his discussions with Hisham Fergiani, who suggested various possible avenues in his quest for short stories.  

The publication of the new edition comes at a time when the situation in Libya is drastically different from that when the first edition appeared. In 2008 “many believed Libya, with a nudge and a kick from the West, could morph from brutal dictatorship to something approaching the ‘kinder, gentler’ oligarchic models of the Gulf and East Asia,” recalls Chorin.

Few could have foreseen the 2011 revolution that would violently overthrew the regime of Muammar Gaddafi. The situation today is ever more fraught, with two rival governments, and Islamic State gaining a foothold in certain places and perhaps posing a future threat to Europe. 


There was a literary renaissance in Libya during and immediately after the 17 February revolution, and new publications burgeoned. But within two years the stranglehold of militias and Islamism imposed a kind of censorship.

The new edition of Translating Libya includes both Chorin’s introduction to the first edition, and a new introduction in which Chorin asks: “Why a revised Translating Libya?” He explains that the changes in Libya since the first edition gave him the opportunity in the second edition to say some things he couldn’t while the old regime was in place, lest he put the authors in a difficult position. “Post-revolution I could make explicit some of the more ‘subtle aspects’ of the original, and add some additional content to a literary history that is experiencing shifts and mutations in Gaddafi’s wake.”

Throughout Libya’s modern history the literary scene has been bound up with tumultuous developments in the country’s politics and economics. Some of the stories in Translating Libya deal with the impact of oil wealth, and the influx of foreign influences. Ramadan Abdalla Bukheit’s “The Quay and the Rain” features a dock worker trying to survive with his family in wretched circumstances amidst an alienating urbanisation. He is haunted by the harshness and danger of his former work in oil drilling in the desert.

Libya was under an often brutal Italian occupation from 1911 to 1943, and was a major theatre of fighting during the Second World War. The constitutional monarchy installed in 1951 was overthrown by Gaddafi’s 1969 revolution, and his unpredictable dictatorship ruled for the next 42 years.

During Gaddafi’s four-decade rule some writers left the country, others stopped writing or took refuge in allegory and metaphor. Some wrote in private, with their works surfacing in public only years later. The writer and critic Mohammed Fagih Salih called the 1970s in Libya “the age in which people before it wrote, and people after it wrote.”

'a lesson in how writers communicate in a repressive regime'

The second edition of Translating Libya has a new foreword, by the veteran Libyan novelist, short story writer and dramatist Ahmed Ibrahim Fagih. In a sense this brings the book full circle, for it was reading Fagih’s story “The Locusts” when he first went to Libya that triggered the idea of preparing an anthology of Libyan stories in English translation. Chroin was introduced to “The Locusts” by his Libyan assistant Basem Tulti after he asked for suggestions of Libyan literature he might read. Chorin loved the story and translated it, and then he and Tulti embarked on the project to collect and translate stories which culminated in the publication of Translating Libya.

In his foreword, Fagih writes: “Translating Libya is an expression of Libyan culture, but also a lesson in how writers communicate in a repressive regime, where heavy censorship, and random, severe punishment are common.” The stories reflect society past and present. “They even give voice to the sufferings and psychic disturbances of the dictator, living in constant tension with the people.”

Fagih observes that the idea of “searching for a place” committed Chorin to visiting the very towns and sites mentioned in the pieces. “Libya is a vast country of 1,760,000 square kilometres. It has a number of very different environments, colours and flavours. Libya encompasses rich coastal areas, oases, mountains: its people are Bedouin, urban dwellers and rural folk. The reader of this book will gain, both from the stories and Chorin’s commentary, a sense of this geographical and cultural variation in Technicolour.”

Translating Libya is divided into three main parts. The first part sets the scene, tracing the short story from Benghazi in the 1960s, through the decades to the 21st century. It also tells of how Chorin set about finding and collecting stories, through scouring bookshops, newspapers, magazines and the internet, and picking the brains of Libyan acquaintances.


The second part of the book contains the translated short stories, divided into three geographical sections:  East, West and South of Libya. These correspond roughly to the old provinces of Cyrenaica, Tripolitania and Fezzan. To the sixteen stories in the first edition Chorin  has added one new story, by human rights lawyer and author Azza Kamel Maghur, daughter of the short-story pioneer Kamel Hassan Maghur (1935-2002.

 Azza Kamel Maghur: a leader in 'realist-fiction'

Chorin reckons that Maghur’s short story “The Olive Tree” establishes her as a leading figure in modern Libyan ‘realist-fiction’. The story is set in Zintan during the 2011 revolution and is dedicated to its real-life central figure “the Martyr Sheikh Mohammed al-Madani and the heroes of Zintan”. The story is taken from Maghur’s collection of stories on the revolution, Fashloum: Qisas Februaee. Chorin sees “The Olive Tree” as marking “the passing of the baton to a new literary generation.”

The third part of the book, "Interpreting the Stories", includes Chorin's essays on such aspects of the stories as Three Generations of Economic Shock, Migration, Minorities (including Jews, Berbers and sub-Saharan Africans), Between Depression and Elation (on the mix of despair and humour in Libyan stories), and Women in the Stories. Chorin has kept these essays largely as they were in the first edition. "One reason is that I wish to highlight the ways in which the stories foreshadowed the revolution, and may explain what will happen to Libya in the future". The books's third part concludes with three new sections, the first examining the contemporary revolutionary context of Libyan literature. The final two sections reproduce two of Chorin’s articles: “The Graffiti of Benghazi”, published in Words Without Borders on 17 August 2011 and “Benghazi Blues” from Foreign Policy, 5 August 2011.

Chorin left Libya in 2006 and departed the diplomatic service two years later to work for a multinational in Dubai. His two years working as a diplomat in Libya left him with an abiding interest in the country and an affection for its people. His book Exit the Colonel: The Hidden History of the Libyan Revolution was published in 2012 by Public Affairs in the US and (as Exit Gaddafi : The Hidden History of the Libyan Revolution) by Saqi in the UK. He is Founding Partner and CEO of Perim Associates LLC which provides economic analysis and strategic advice to companies and governments.

In the new edition of  Translating Libya Chorin recounts how in autumn 2010 he was contacted by someone who had read the first edition of the book and had gained insight into a country he had left 35 years before. Chorin discovered that he and this person had a common interest in medical logistics and they discussed projects they might do in Libya. They set up the framework for a partnership between a US teaching hospital and the Benghazi Medical Centre (BMC).

On 10 September 2012 Chorin and this colleague witnessed in Benghazi the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding that had the potential to improve the city’s emergency care capacity. On the afternoon of the following day the US Ambassador Christopher Stevens told Chorin and his colleague he was thrilled at this, but a few hours later came the attack on the US compound in Benghazi in which Stevens was killed.


After the trauma of the killing of Ambassador Stevens, a number of the late ambassador’s friends and former colleagues worked to bring the prominent Libyan artist Mohammad Bin Lamin to California for a memorial art show, carrying with him the work of several other Libyan artists.

Chorin's friendship with Bin Lamin goes back to when Chorin was living in Libya. Chorin recalls that at the time he was preparing the first edition of the book he had discussed with Bin Lamin a particularly striking group of the artist’s paintings entitled “Yellow Beings”. Later on, Chorin was despairing of finding for inclusion in the book a story referring to Derna, “the most beautiful place in all of Libya”. His problem was solved when Bin Lamin asked him to look at some stories by a friend of his: “With its timely and detailed descriptions of Derna and its environs, Abdullah Ali Al-Ghazal’s ‘The Mute’ would constitute the final piece of our geographic jigsaw puzzle.”

Looking to the future, despite Libya's grave problems, Chorin refuses to give up hope that things will eventually improve. "If insulated from outside influence, I believe Libya may ultimately sort itself out, as it has in the past, during times of great pressure and turmoil. It will be interesting to see what literature emerges from the post-Revolutionary high, and subsequent lows."

Ahmed Ibrahim Fagih says that since February 2011, Libyans have been forced to answer dark questions, such as "was 'freedom' worth the costs associated with the current harsh reality?" Libya's past provides evidence of similar periods of fragmentation, chaos and re-integration. "The key is to make sure that the processes established now incorporate lessons from the past, so that we do not repeat the same old stories."
- Susannah Tarbush, London

International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF) 2016 shortlist
Tareq Bakari(of Morocco), Rabai al-Madhoun (Palestine), Mohamed Rabie (Egypt), Mahmoud Shukair (Palestine), Shahla Ujayli (Syria) and George Yaraq (Lebanon) were today announced as the six authors shortlisted for the 2016 International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF), widely known as the Arabic Booker Prize. The shortlist is dominated by writers from the Mashreq, among them two prominent Palestinian authors.

The prize is worth a total of $60,000 to the winner: $50,000 plus the $10,000 that goes to each shortlisted author. In addition, the winner is guaranteed translation into English. The winner will be announced at an awards ceremony in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday 26 April 2016, the eve of the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair.

The six shortlisted titles were chosen from 159 entries from 18 countries, all published between July 2014and June 2015. They are:
Numediaby Tareq Bakari (Dar al-Adab)
Destinies: Concerto of the Holocaust and the Nakbaby Rabai al-Madhoun  (Maktabat Kul Shee)
Mercuryby Mohamed Rabie (Dar Tanweer, Lebanon)
Praise for the Women of the Familyby Mahmoud Shukair (Palestine) - Hachette Antoine  
A Sky Close to Our Houseby Shahla Ujayli (Syria) - Difaf Publications
The Guard of the Dead  by George Yaraq (Lebanon) - Difaf Publications

The 16-title longlist was announced on 12 January, though one of the books - Kuwaiti author  Taleb Alrefai's novel Here - was subsequentlydisqualified , as per the rules of submission, because it was found an earlier edition had been published before July 2014. 

This is the ninth year of the Prize, recognised as the leading prize for literary fiction in the Arab world. It is run with the support of the Booker Prize Foundation in London and funded by Abu Dhabi Tourism and Culture Authority (TCA Abu Dhabi). It also enjoys supported from Abu Dhabi International Book Fair and Etihad Airways.

The shortlist was revealed by a judging panel chaired by Emirati poet and academic Amina Thiban at a press conference hosted by The Cultural Club in Muscat, Oman. "The process of choosing the shortlist was a pleasure and a challenge in equal measure," Thiban said. "This year’s list features a number of experimental works, which try out new ground as they explore the experiences of the individual and the larger concerns of the Arab world, from personal issues to social, political and historical ones. The shortlisted novels are characterised by their innovative narrative forms and styles, which both question the heritage of the Arabic novel and address the tragedy of the present day Middle East.”

Professor Yasir Suleiman CBE, Chair of IPAF's Board of Trustees, added: “This is a strong list, one that reflects the energy of the Arab literary scene as it marches forward to reach an ever-expanding readership. Through their subjects, well-crafted characters and technical ingenuity, these novels transcend their local sources to reach distant shores where the human spirit is the ultimate champion.” 

As always, the identity of the five IPAF judges had been kept secret until the shortlist was announced..Thiban's co-judges are Egyptian journalist, poet and editor of Al-Qahira newspaper Sayyed Mahmoud; Moroccan academic and critic Mohammed Mechbal; Bosnian academic, translator and researcher Munir Mujić, and Lebanese poet and critic Abdo Wazen, who edits Al-Hayat newspaper's cultural pages.


A statement from IPAF said: "The six novels are wide-ranging in subject matter, setting and style. They include the story of a Moroccan intellectual searching for identity through a series of relationships (Numedia); a pioneering novel, written in four parts – each representing a concerto movement – on the subject of Palestinian life both in occupation and exile (Destinies: Concerto of the Holocaust and the Nakba); a dystopian imagining of “the counter revolution" in Egypt, set in a nightmarish future where the police battle against a mysterious occupying power (Mercury); the story of the Al-Abd al-Lat tribe, former Bedouins whose women play a vital role in integrating the family into urban Palestinian society during the 1950s (Praise for the Women of the Family); memories of Syria’s past and times of tolerance and simple pleasures from the viewpoint of a Syrian woman now living in exile in Amman after her town, Raqqa, is occupied by ISIS (A Sky Close to Our House) and, finally, a new perspective on the Lebanese Civil War through the eyes of a hospital undertaker, whose former life as a mercenary puts his life in danger (The Guard of the Dead)."

IPAF has been making efforts to increase the representation of women and young authors on its submissions, longlists and shortlists. Some eyebrows are bound to be raised at the fact that that there is only one woman, Syrian Shahla Ujayli, on the shortlist. The ages of the authors range from 28 (debut novelist Moroccan Tareq Bakari) to 75 (Palestinian Mahmoud Shukair), with an average of 52 years.

One previously shortlisted author, Rabai al-Madhoun, makes the list. His novel The Lady of Tel Aviv was shortlisted in 2010 and has been translated into English by the Saqi imprint Telegram Books. One first novel, Numedia, also makes the list. Two of the shortlisted authors have participated in the annual IPAF Nadwa (workshop): Mohamed Rabie in 2012 and Shahla Ujayli in 2014. Ujayli worked on what is now the fifth chapter of her shortlisted book, A Sky Close to Our House, during the workshop and credits the experience with helping her move forward with the novel.

IPAF Shortlist 2016 – biographies and synopses 



Tareq Bakari was born in Missour, eastern Morocco, in 1988. He graduated with a BA in Arabic Literature from Mohamed Bin Abdullah University, Fes, in 2010 and obtained a diploma from the Meknes Teacher Training College in 2011. Since then, he has worked as an Arabic language teacher in Meknes. He has published numerous articles and pieces of creative writing, both in print and online, but Numedia (2015) is his first novel.

Numediatells the life story of Murad, as written by his French former girlfriend Julia. An orphan, Murad is cursed by the people of his village. Ostracised, insulted and beaten, he turns to love in an attempt to take revenge on fate: first with Khoula, who becomes pregnant; then Nidal, his classmate and fellow comrade in resistance; then Julia, seen as the French coloniser, and with his final love Numedia, the mute Berber. The rich story of Numedia unfolds against the backdrop of the real-life historical, political and religious landscape of Morocco. 


Rabai al-Madhoun is a Palestinian writer, born in al-Majdal, Ashkelon, southern Palestine (now Israel), in 1945. During the 1948 Nakba exodus, his family emigrated to Khan Younis in the Gaza strip. He studied at Cairo and Alexandria Universities in Egypt, but was expelled from Egypt in 1970 before graduating, because of his political activities. He has worked at the Palestinian Centre for Research Studies and as a journalist and editor for many newspapers and magazines, including Al-Horria, Al-Ufuq, Sawt al-Bilad, Al-Quds al-Arabi, Al-Hayat, WTN (an American TV news network), and APTN-Associated Press. His published works include The Lady from Tel Aviv (2010), a novel shortlisted for the 2010 International Prize for Arabic Fiction, and his second novel Destinies: Concerto of the Holocaust and the Nakba (2015). The Lady from Tel Aviv was translated into English by Elliot Colla and published by the Saqi imprint Telegram Books. The book won the English PEN Writers in Translation award. He currently works as an editor for Al-Sharq Al-Awsat newspaper in London.



Destinies: Concerto of the Holocaust and the Nakba is a pioneering Palestinian novel written in four parts. Each part representing a concerto movement, the novel looks at the Palestinian exodus from Israel in 1948 (known as the ‘nakba’), the holocaust and the Palestinian right to return. Destinies: Concerto of the Holocaust and the Nakba is a novel of Palestine from outside and from within. It examines the tragedy of everyday Palestinian life, telling the story of Palestinians living under occupation and forced to assume Israeli nationality, as well as exiled Palestinians trying to return to their now-occupied home country.


Mohamed Rabie is an Egyptian writer, born in 1978. He graduated from the Cairo faculty of engineering in 2002 and his first novel, Kawkab Anbar (2010), won first prize in the emerging writers' category of the Sawiris Cultural Award in 2012. His second novel, Year of the Dragon, was published in 2012, followed by Mercury in 2014. In 2012, he took part in the IPAF Nadwa (writers' workshop) for promising young writers.



Mercury is a dark fantasy which imagines “the counter revolution" in Egypt as a reality in a nightmarish future. The eponymous hero of this fantasy novel is an officer who witnessed the defeat of the police in Cairo on the 28 January 2011. Over a decade later, Egypt is occupied by a mysterious power and the remnants of the old police force are leading the popular resistance, fighting among the ruins of a shattered Cairo. It is a daily hell of arbitrary killing, an intensified version of the sporadic massacres witnessed since the famous revolution in January.




Mahmoud Shukair is a Palestinian writer, born in Jabal al-Mukabbar, Jerusalem, in 1941. He writes short stories and novels for adults and teenagers. He is the author of forty-five books, six television series, and four plays. His stories have been translated into several languages, including English, French, German, Chinese, Mongolian and Czech. He has occupied leadership positions within the Jordanian Writers' Union and the Union of Palestinian Writers and Journalists. In 2011, he was awarded the Mahmoud Darwish Prize for Freedom of Expression. He has spent his life between Beirut, Amman and Prague and now lives in Jerusalem.

Praise for the Women of the Familyis a history of the women of the Al-Abd al-Lat clan, which has left the desert and is preparing to leave its Bedouin customs behind. The women of the clan struggle with these changes and many scorn those embracing modern life: when Rasmia accompanies her husband to a party, Najma wears a dress and Sana gets a tan on her white legs, they set malicious tongues wagging; meanwhile, Wadha, the sixth wife of Mannan, the chief of the clan, still believes that the washing machine and television are inhabited by evil spirits. Set after the nakba (the Palestinian exodus from what is now Israel) in a time of political and social change, the novel witnesses the rapid advance of modernity and the seeds of conflict beginning to grow in 1950s Palestine.


Shahla Ujayli is a Syrian writer, born in 1976. She holds a doctorate in Modern Arabic Literature and Cultural Studies from Aleppo University in Syria and currently teaches Modern Arabic Literature at the University of Aleppo and the American University in Madaba, Jordan. She is the author of a short story collection entitled The Mashrabiyya (2005) and two novels: The Cat's Eye (2006), which won the Jordan State Award for Literature in 2009, and Persian Carpet (2013). She has also published a number of critical studies, including The Syrian Novel: Experimentalism and Theoretical Categories (2009), Cultural Particularity in the Arabic Novel (2011) and Mirror of Strangeness: Articles on Cultural Criticism (2006). In 2014, she took part in the IPAF nadwa (writers' workshop) for promising young writers, where she worked on a passage from her 2016 longlisted novel, A Sky Close to Our House.


A Sky Close to Our Housespans the second half of the 19th century to the present, featuring characters from different backgrounds who meet in Amman, Jordan, the city at the heart of the story. It is here that Jaman Badran, a Syrian immigrant, gets to know Nasr Al-Amiri, a Palestinian-Syrian who has come to Amman for his mother’s funeral. They soon discover that their grandparents were neighbours in Aleppo. Through the dramatic fall of families in Syria, Palestine, Iraq, Serbia and Vietnam, A Sky Close to Our House shows how wars can change concepts of identity and nation, and create new destinies for large numbers of people; it also underlines that mass tragedy does not in any way negate the significance of individual suffering. 




George Yaraq is a Lebanese novelist, born in 1958. He has worked as an editor and freelance writer for several Lebanese newspapers and magazines, such as Al-Nahar, Al-Liwa', Al-Hayat, Al-Sayyad, and Jasad. His first novel, Night, was published in 2013. 



The Guard of the Deadis the story of Aabir, a hospital undertaker. Working in the morgue by day and the operating theatre by night, he learns to pluck out and sell the gold teeth he finds in the corpses’ mouths. However, he lives in a state of constant dread and apprehension, his past working for a political party and as a sniper during the Lebanese Civil War hanging over him. One day, Aabir is kidnapped from the morgue. With no idea about where he is, who has taken him or why, he finds himself searching for clues about his kidnapping in his past.

The Judging Panel

Amina Thiban (Chair) is an Emirati poet and academic specialising in literature and forms of narrative, in particular the modern Arabic novel, who has also worked in journalism. She has an MA in Middle Eastern Studies and a PhD in Modern Arabic Literature, both from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. After graduation, she studied English at Cambridge and Comparative Political Poetry in Cyprus and America. She is the author of Transformation and Modernity in the Desert: Tribal Saga in "Cities of Salt" (2005), The Discourse of Contrast and Irony in the Works of Emile Habibi (1993) and Flower of Blood (2013), as well as numerous studies focusing upon the Arabic novel, modern Arabic feminist discourse and academic criticism.

Sayyed Mahmoud is an Egyptian journalist and poet, born in 1969. He is currently editor of Al-Qahira newspaper, issued by the Egyptian Ministry of Culture, and has edited the cultural sections of a number of publications including Mu'asasa al-Ahram al-Masriyya and several independent Egyptian papers. In 2001, he won a prize awarded by the Union of Egyptian Journalists for the best literary coverage, and he has worked as a literary editor and freelance correspondent for several Arab newspapers, such as Al-Hayat (London), Al-Akhbar (Beirut), and Reuters. He has served as a judge on the Egyptian Sawiris Cultural Award and the Arab Journalism Award in Dubai (in the Cultural Journalism category), and was honoured for his media work at a conference for Egyptian writers in 2013. He has written several documentary films and is a founding member of the Arab Group for Cultural Politics. He is the author of a volume of poetry, Recitation of the Shadow (2014), and editor of a book of interviews with literary figures by Bahraini poet Qasim Haddad, titled The Temptation of Questioning (2008), as well as A New Page: the young Arab writers' workshop (2005). 


Mohammed Mechbal is a Moroccan academic and critic. He is head of the Rhetoric and Discourse Analysis team in the College of Arts of the Abdul-Malik al-Saadi University, Tetouan, Morocco. He has written the following works: Rhetorical Utterances in Poetry Analysis (1993), The Rhetoric of the Anecdote (1997), Secrets of Literary Criticism (2002), Rhetoric and Origins: a study in the foundations of Arab rhetorical thought - Ibn Jani as a case study (2007), Rhetoric and Narration: the controversy of argumentation and imagery in "Akhbar Al-Jahiz" (2010), Rhetoric and Literature: from imagery in language to imagery in discourse (2010), Egypt through Moroccan Eyes (2014), and The Discourse of Morality and Identity in the Letters of Al-Jahiz: a rhetorical argumentational approach (2015). He has also translated The Image of the Other in Literary Imagination (2009), co-translated The Image in the Novel (1995) and Argumentation in Communication (2013), and was one of a team of translators who translated the Oxford Dictionary of Rhetoric (2015).

Munir Mujić is a Bosnian academic, translator and researcher. He received his PhD in Literature from The Sarajevo University. He lectures in Arabic literature and Arabic rhetoric at the Sarajevo University, in the Department for Oriental Languages and Literatures at the Faculty for Humanities and Social Sciences. He has published three books and numerous articles on both classical and modern Arabic literature as well as Arabic rhetoric. His literary translations from Arabic into Bosnian include works by Ghassan Kanafani, Salah Abdel Sabour and the poetry of Khalil Mutran. His scope of interests also includes Arabic manuscripts and he translated a manuscript of Arabic rhetoric by Bosnian author al-Aqhisari. He is a member of the Bosnian Philological Society and of the editorial board for publications of the Faculty for Humanities and Social Sciences.

Abdo Wazen is a Lebanese poet and critic, born in 1957. He is editor-in-chief of the cultural pages of Al-Hayat newspaper. He won the Dubai Press Club's 2005 Cultural Journalism Award, and the 2012 Sheikh Zayyed Children's Literature Award for his novel The Young Man who Saw the Colour of the Air (2011). He has published seven volumes of poetry and two novels as well as works of criticism and translation. His poetic works include: The Closed Wood (1982), The Eye and the Air (1985), Another Reason for the Night (1986), Garden of the Senses (1993), Doors of Sleep (1996), Lantern of Temptation (2000), Fire of Return (2003), A Broken Life (2007) and The Days Are Not for Bidding Them Farewell (2014). His other works include: My Father's Room (2003), Open Heart (2009), Mahmoud Darwish: the Stranger Falls Upon Himself (2006), Poets of the World (2010), An Introduction to Novels of the Lebanese War (2010), and Amin Maaluf, Breaking Boundaries (2012). His poetry has been translated into several languages, including English, French, German, Portuguese and Spanish. His novel Open Heart was published in French as À Coeur Ouvert (2016) and his poetry volume Garden of the Senses was the subject of an MA thesis at Toulouse Le-Mirail University, France.

Delivering on its aim to increase the international reach of Arabic fiction, the Prize has guaranteed English translations for all its winners.The first eight winners are:
2008: Sunset Oasis by Bahaa Taher (Egypt); 2009: Azazeel by Youssef Ziedan (Egypt); 2010: Spewing Sparks as Big as Castles by Abdo Khal (Saudi Arabia); 2011: The Arch and the Butterfly by Mohammed Achaari (Morocco) and The Doves' Necklace by Raja Alem (Saudi Arabia); 2012: The Druze of Belgrade by Rabee Jaber (Lebanon); 2013: The Bamboo Stalk by Saud Alsanousi (Kuwait); 2014: Frankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmed Saadawi (Iraq); 2015: The Italian by Shukri Mabkhout (Tunisia).

The English translation of Raja Alem’s novel will be published by Duckworth on 2 June. Alsanousi’s The Bamboo Stalk was published by Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing (BQFP) in 2015. Other  winners translated into English include Sunset Oasis (Sceptre), Azazeel (Atlantic Books)  Throwing Sparks and The Arch and the Butterfly (both published by BQFP). The 2014 winner, Ahmed Saadawi's Frankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmed Saadawi, in English translation by Jonathan Wright, has secured publication by Oneworld in the UK and Penguin Books in the US.
In late February Saoud Alsanousi will take part in the Muscat International Book Fair and an event with students at Sultan Qaboos University.

In addition to the annual Prize, IPAF supports an annual nadwa (writers’ workshop) for emerging writers from across the Arab world. The inaugural nadwa took place in November 2009 and included eight writers, who had been recommended by IPAF Judges as writers of exceptional promise.A number of former nadwa participants have gone on to be shortlisted and even win the Prize, including Lina Hawyan Elhassan from the 2015 longlist, 2014 winner Ahmed Saadawi, and Mohamed Rabie and Shahla Ujayli from this year’s shortlist.
Susannah Tarbush - London

Saqi to publish Native by Sayed Kashua

London-based publisher Saqi Books anounced today that it is delighted to have acquired UK and Commonwealth rights to Native: Dispatches from an Israeli-Palestinian Life by Arab-Israeli author Sayed Kashua. It will be publishing the book in April 2016, as a paperback.

Sayed Kashua is the author of the novels Dancing Arabs; Let It Be Morning, which was shortlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award; and Second Person Singular, winner of the prestigious Bernstein Prize. He is a columnist for Haaretz and the creator of the popular, prizewinning sitcom, Arab Labor. Now living in the United States with his family, he teaches at the University of Illinois.

Native: Dispatches from an Israeli-Palestinian Life gathers together for the first time a selection of Kashua's personal essays, first published by Haaretz between 2006 and 2014. The essays explore questions of identity, cultural divides and the deeply-rooted complexities of a tragic conflict, alongside witty and intimate depictions from Kashua's personal life as both a father and husband.


Kashua writes with poignancy and candour about his children’s upbringing and encounters with racism, as well as the rising social and political tensions that led him to emigrate from Jerusalem to the United States in 2014.

Sarah Cleave, publishing manager of Saqi Books, who acquired rights from Abner Stein in association with the Deborah Harris Agency, said: ‘Native is a wickedly sardonic, moving and hugely entertaining collection that offers real insight into the lived experiences of Palestinians in Israel. Written by one of the true masters of the form, this ostensibly light-hearted book is a nuanced and enlightening critique of Israeli society that exposes the difficulties of living as a Palestinian in the Jewish state."

The Palestinian Mission in the UK issued today the following statement on Palestinian Ambassador Manuel Hassassian's response to Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond's lecture at the Conservative Middle East Council's Policy Meeting earlier this week: 


Ambassador Hassassian at the Annual Policy Meeting of the Conservative Middle East Council.

The Palestinian Ambassador to the UK, Manuel Hassassian attended the Annual Policy Lecture of the Conservative Middle East Council (CMEC) on Wednesday evening, 10th February. The event enjoyed a packed audience of ministers, MPs, Peers and the Arab diplomatic corps in London.

The Foreign Secretary, The Rt Hon Philip Hammond MP delivered the 2016 Annual Policy Lecture and spoke about the current security situation in the Middle East and the lack of stability. He emphasised that all efforts are now being exerted to find a solution to the conflict in Syria. Towards the end of his speech, he touched on the critical situation in Palestine, assigning the stalemate in the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians to the intransigence of ‘elites on both sides’ leading to suffering among ordinary people.

H.E. Manuel Hassassian was the first to take the floor after the Foreign Secretary and re-joined that although he sincerely agreed with what The Rt Hon Philip Hammond MP had said about Syria, he had to disagree, in absolute terms, with him in relation to Israel and Palestine.

He strongly questioned the fact that the Foreign Secretary had framed the issue by putting the Israelis and the Palestinians on an equal footing. This was an unacceptable assertion as they are not equal at all. Israel is the occupier and the Palestinians are occupied and the impasse in the peace process is directly due to Israeli policies. The Ambassador highlighted, in particular, the fact that Israel is building more and more illegal settlements on expropriated territory which amounts to a creeping annexation of Palestinian land. This, he emphasised, is the chief obstacle to any meaningful dialogue at the current time.

The Foreign Secretary thanked Ambassador Hassassian for his valuable contribution and said he was of the same view when it came to illegal Israeli settlement building which he agreed was definitely an impediment to peace.

review of Peter Clark’s Damascus Diaries: Life under the Assads
by
Susannah Tarbush
for an Arabic version of this review see Al-Hayat Arabic daily

During his time as Director of the British Council in Syria in 1992-97, Dr Peter Clark OBE wrote a page-a-day diary. Now London-based Gilgamesh Publishing has published the edited diaries as the 393-page book Damascus Diaries: Life under the Assads.

Clark’s diaries make fascinating, lively and sometimes amusing reading. He was appointed Director of the British Council in Syria at a particularly crucial and sensitive time in relations between the two countries. Diplomatic relations had been restored in autumn 1991 - five years after Britain broke relations because of evidence that the Syrian embassy in London had been involved in Palestinian Nezar Hindawi’s 1986 attempt to blow up an Israeli El Al airliner.

The re-establishment of cultural and educational links via the British Council was a vital part of trying to improve relations between Syria and UK. Damascus Diaries conveys the texture of daily life in Syria as Peter set about restoring British Council activities, starting a programme of English-language teaching and developing educational and cultural exchanges. His diaries give a vivid picture of his many encounters, conversations, meals and parties with members of the artistic, literary, political, academic, and military elite and with “ordinary” Syrians. He also records his extensive travels around Syria on car or by foot.


He dedicates the book to three key colleagues he employed at the British Council in Damascus: Motaz Hadaya, a Damascene; Vanda Harmaneh, a Christian Jordanian; and Ayoub Ghurairi, a Palestinian refugee who had lived in Damascus since 1948.

In his foreword to Damascus Diaries Sir Andrew Green, who became British ambassador in 1991, pays tribute to Clark’s record in Syria. “His achievements were all the greater because the Syrians were, throughout his time in Damascus, in the grip of a ruthless police state whose multiple secret police forces were deeply suspicious of all contact between Syrians and Western embassies.”

Clark had a unique vantage point from which to see some of the last years of Hafez al-Assad’s rule. There was in the 1990s much interest in contacts between Syria and Israel, and whether these would lead to peace negotiations. There was also speculation over the president’s health, and what would happen if he died (he lived in fact until 2000). His “heir apparent”, his eldest son Basil al-Assad, was killed in a car crash in January 1994. Clark wrote in his diary that the next son, Bashar, “lacks personality... it is his sister Bushra who has the personality”. He compared Bashar to British monarch Queen Elizabeth’s youngest son, Prince Edward, while Bushra was like the more forceful Princess Anne.


In his diaries Clark has the observant eye of a novelist, but his main creative literary passion is translating Arabic literature. While in Syria he constantly met, and read the works of, Syrian authors such as Abdul Salam al-Ujaili, Hanna Mina and Hani al-Rahib. He translated two novels by Ulfat Idilbi, by then in her eighties, which were published by Quartet Books in London - Sabriya: Damascus Bitter Sweet and Grandfather's Tale. His English translations of Sa’dallah Wannus The Elephant O Lord of Ages and Mamduh Udwan’s The Mask were performed at the Institute of Music and Drama in April 1997.

Clark speaks fluent Arabic, having studied the language at Shemlan, Lebanon, in 1971-72. He had spent 25 years with the British Council, in Jordan, Lebanon, Sudan, Yemen, Tunisia, and the United Arab Emirates before moving to Syria. But Syria has a special place in his heart. “I fell in love with the country on my first visit in 1962”, he says, and he returned there repeatedly.

Even after he left Syria in 1997 he went back several times escorting British and American tour groups. The last time was in early 2011, when the present crisis was in its early days. “Since then the country has imploded, with unspeakable savageries being committed, the displacement of millions of people, and a total disruption to the warm and friendly Syria that I have described.” Clark writes. He has decided to donate all the royalties from the book to the Saïd Foundation’s Syrian Relief Programme which has “been doing outstanding work for Syrians in crisis”.

It is clear from his diaries that Clark needed skill and patience in trying to navigate his plans for British Council activities in education and culture through the maze of the Baath Party, the Assad family and the power of certain Alawites. He often expresses frustration with the Syrian political system, and sometimes with the British embassy and his bosses at the British Council back in London.

One of his major achievements was getting Purcell’s opera Dido and Aeneas put on in Arabic 1995. The opening performance, at the Ebla Cham Hotel in Damascus was attended by nine Syrian minsters, the chief of staff General Hikmat Shihabi and the Lebanese Minister of Culture. “There is a sense of awe in the audience,” writes Clark. “We are presenting excellence, colour, movement, singing, and most of the performers are Syrian!” The opera was then performed in Palmyra, and at the Roman theatre in Bosra.

Clark is an intensely sociable character, and writes: “I am grateful for the friendship of hundreds of Syrians.” The index to his diaries contains the names of around 800 people, the majority of them Syrians. There are also references to some Britons: for example Bishop Kenneth Cragg who visited Syria in August 1995. Clark took the Bishop to meet the Mufti, Ahmad Kaftaru, and they “are soon talking warmly together... they walk hand in hand to the door.”


An extract from Damascus Diaries: Life Under the Assads by Peter Clark

Thursday 19 August 1993
I have lunch with the novelist Hani al-Rahib. He does not think much of Ulfat Idilbi as a writer. I should be translating Ghada Samman. Ulfat is backward-looking and reinforces Western stereotypes. Hmmm. He is wanting to give up teaching – he is a lecturer in English at the University of Kuwait – and start a photography business. We discuss modern literature and Syria.

In the evening I go out to a restaurant in the Barada Valley with Hikmat Shatti, designer, Fitna al-Rayess, niece of the publisher Riyad, and two film directors, Muhammad Malas and Umar Amiralai. Conversation is all in Arabic, but it is searching and exhausting. We return, after much araq, at about half past one.

Saturday 21 August 1993
I work on translating Dimashq Ya Basmati al-Huzn by Ulfat Idilbi, and work out words for different rooms in a house – there are over ten words. I am invited to a “Hawaii” evening at a house of one of the British oil executives. Precious and beautiful people. I wear shorts, the shirt I bought in Carnaby Street in 1968 and a floppy hat. I have a long discussion with the helpful Adam Ereli [a diplomat from the US embassy] He loves suckled pig and is far more aware of Alawite politics than anyone in the British Embassy. He is also aware of the strengths and weaknesses of the Ba’ath Paty. The member of the Party Command in charge of higher education, Wahib Tannous, is an old-style Communist sympathiser.

Monday 23 August 1993
I go to the Embassy and read the Ambassador’s carefully-written paper on what happens to the Peace Process if Hafez al-Assad dies. It is interesting, but suggests that there could be the possibility of a civil war and of Islamic fundamentalists taking over. Of course both are possible scenarios. But a civil war? There are numerous factions and confessions  in the country – as in Lebanon – but there has not been the build-up of private armies, with war lords. If there were a civil war, where would the weapons come from? Iraq overland? Libya by sea? Kurds? Before the level of weapons became dangerous there would be ample time to secure the borders. But I think plenty of people are mindful of what happened in Lebanon. There are plenty of forces against a civil war. Similarly there is a coalition against the Muslim fundamentalists, who could claim an alternative legitimacy. Hopes for the Peace Process do rely on the survival of Hafez al-Assad. All that is a sobering thought for our activities. We are getting a hundred enquiries a day about English classes.

Tuesday 24 August 1993
I have dinner with an Embassy colleague. There have been serious electricity power cuts. “After 30 years of the Ba’ath Party, they can’t get the electricity right.” This is saloon-bar political analysis. Syria, like any other place, is an aggregate of individuals. One of my Syrian colleagues tells me that her mother-in-law, who comes from a village in the north, was married when she was 11 and screamed as she was raped on her bridal night. In her older age she now hates men, all men.

Wednesday 25 August 1993
Salah Jadid, one of the rivals of Hafez al-Assad 25 years ago, has died.

At five in the afternoon I set out north and drive to Tartous. I buy some chocolates for my hosts and go the labyrinth of roads in the hills, asking my way to the village of Qarqifta. The Alawite villages are full of people walking out in the evening - men, women, girls, courting couples. I reach Qarqifta and a young man shows me the way to [General Dr] Mahmud Zughaiby's house. After a shower, Mahmud takes me off to a beach caféne near Baniyas where there is a party full of young people. It is 1am before I get to bed.

book extract published with the kind permission of Peter Clark and Gilgamesh Publishing 

- Can you help refugees? Can you offer a house, a studio, or a flat?
- Are you a local landlord or interested in registering as one?
- Do you know local landlords and can help spread the word?

In response to the Syrian refugee crisis the RBKC Council agreed in October that the Royal Borough should offer to resettle 50 refugees from Syria. The refugees will be resettled as part of the Government’s Syrian Vulnerable Persons Relocation Scheme (VPRS) under which 20,000 vulnerable Syrian refugees will be resettled by 2020.

The Council is now working with the The RBKC Refugees Welcome Committee  to make the necessary arrangements. They are looking for privately rented accommodation for resettled Syrian refugee families and individuals. Because of high housing prices in RKBC, and existing pressures on Council and housing association properties, the refugees will need to be housed in private rented accommodation.

"At market rents such accommodation would be too expensive for refugees to afford, so our ability to accept refugees in Kensington and Chelsea rests on the generosity of private sector landlords willing to provide suitable accommodation at lower rents than they would normally charge," says the RBKC Refugees Welcome Committee. Several offers of accommodation have been made, but more is urgently needed. Because of the depth of public sympathy and support for Syrian refugees' plight the Council and the Welcome Committee are hopeful that further such offers will emerge.

Landlords would be paid at the Local Housing Allowance (LHA) and would need to be able to offer housing of good quality to meet the needs of resettled families, that is available to let for 3 years. 


Interested? Contact Ffion or Maria at Migrants Organise (formerly Migrant and Refugee Communities Forum) at welcomecommittee@mrcf.org.uk or 020 8964 4815.

To know more: Visit https://www.rbkc.gov.uk/rbkc-refugees-welcome-committee