{"id":13478,"date":"2011-12-26T12:29:57","date_gmt":"2011-12-26T08:29:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/?p=13478"},"modified":"2011-12-26T17:25:20","modified_gmt":"2011-12-26T13:25:20","slug":"best-arabic-books-of-2011-a-personal-choice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/middle-east-society\/best-arabic-books-of-2011-a-personal-choice\/","title":{"rendered":"Best Arabic Books of 2011: A Personal Choice"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"highslide\" onclick=\"return vz.expand(this)\" href=\"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/Yousse.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-13479\" title=\"Yousse\" src=\"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/Yousse-e1324888152551.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"498\" height=\"316\" \/><\/a>Since I read (Arabic) with all the speed of a blind, arthritic turtle, one wouldn\u2019t want to rely on me for an assessment of which lit is the best of 2011.<\/p>\n<p>Which books resonated in 2011? The<a href=\"http:\/\/arablit.wordpress.com\/2011\/12\/14\/zayed-book-award-announces-longlist-in-young-author-category\/\">\u00a0Zayed Book Award longlist (young author category)<\/a>, which came out earlier this month, looks nothing like the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/arablit.wordpress.com\/2011\/11\/10\/longlist-announced-for-international-prize-for-arabic-fiction-2012\/\">International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF) longlist<\/a>, which was released in November. And while last year, the Naguib Mahfouz Medal echoed the 2010 IPAF shortlist (Miral al-Tahawy\u2019s magical\u00a0<em>Brooklyn Heights\u00a0<\/em>was on the 2010 shortlist and took the medal), this year the Mahfouz Medal was given to the \u201crevolutionary creativity of the Egyptian people.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Medal does not (yet) publicize a longlist or shortlist.<\/p>\n<p>So, to throw up yet another list, Ola al-Saket and I asked a number of\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.almasryalyoum.com\/en\/node\/567396\">Egyptian authors for their favorites of 2011<\/a>. These being difficult times to pin down authors, only eleven came up with some sort of list for us. Books that repeated from list to list include Youssef Rakha\u2019s (pictured above) debut novel\u00a0<em>Book of the Sultan\u2019s Seal<\/em>\u00a0and the short-story collection\u00a0<em>Daydream<\/em>, by Haitham Wardani. Also, Ezzedine Choukri Fishere\u2019s\u00a0<em>Embrace at the Brooklyn Bridge<\/em>\u00a0is on the IPAF longlist and also chosen by poet and academic Nagat Ali. (<em>Embrace\u00a0<\/em>is certainly one of my guesses for the shortlist, which\u00a0is set to be announced on Wednesday, Jan. 11 at the small theater in Cairo\u2019s Opera House.)<\/p>\n<p><strong>Other trends:<\/strong>\u00a0Magazine issues, narratives of the revolution, and Tareq Imam gives a shout-out to graphic novels.\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.almasryalyoum.com\/en\/node\/567396\">The whole list here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Please do add\u00a0<\/strong>your own favorites below, particularly if you\u2019re an author who didn\u2019t get together her\/his list (cough).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>M. LYNX-QUALEY: It&#8217;s been a momentous year in politics in the Arab World but how has literature measured up?  Herewith 2011 &#8216;s highlights.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":13479,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[154,80,5],"tags":[18291,191,1959,1963],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13478"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13478"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13478\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}