{"id":30532,"date":"2014-01-24T12:34:58","date_gmt":"2014-01-24T08:34:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/?p=30532"},"modified":"2014-01-24T12:34:59","modified_gmt":"2014-01-24T08:34:59","slug":"arab-women-writers-read-personal-choice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/middle-east-society\/arab-women-writers-read-personal-choice\/","title":{"rendered":"The Arab Women Writers To Read: A Personal Choice"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"hananalsheikh_0\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I feel rather lukewarm about this \u201c<\/i>Year of Reading Women<\/i><\/a>,\u201d despite an earnest belief that women\u2019s books are (generally speaking) not taken as seriously as men\u2019s:<\/i><\/p>\n

Which women\u2019s voices will this #readwomen2014<\/a> prioritize? Does it touch on any of the reasons why we gravitate toward male protagonists? Will it be, in the main, a celebration of English-language women\u2019s voices? Of women at the center or the peripheries?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

But despite my reservations, there\u2019s a good enough chance that I\u2019m wrong \u2014 in my lukewarmness \u2014 so if you\u2019re keen to play along, this is a list of twelve suggestions of Arabic-writing women. Bonus points where the translator is also a woman. So here it is, one for every month of the year:<\/p>\n

January: Hanan al-Shaykh<\/b>, Story of Zahra,\u00a0<\/i><\/b>trans Peter Ford. You just cannot go wrong with\u00a0Story of Zahra,\u00a0<\/i>which is also one of the five books on my \u201chow to get started with Arabic literature<\/a>\u201d list.<\/p>\n

February: Adania Shibli, Touch, <\/i><\/b>trans. Paula Haydar.<\/i> Or, if you prefer, We Are All Equally Far from Love,\u00a0<\/i>trans. Paul Starkey. Shibli is for those of you who are literarily-minded, who enjoy a woman\u2019s narrative that lives outside traditional Western story-building. With its surprising poetic imagery,\u00a0Touch\u00a0<\/i>could just as easily be classed as a collection of prose poems.<\/p>\n

March: Samar Yazbek, Woman in the Crossfire<\/i><\/b>, <\/i>trans Max Weiss.\u00a0Raw, honest, terrifying, hopeful portrait of the first few months of uprising in Syria by one of its leading novelists.<\/p>\n

April: Hoda Barakat, Tiller of Waters,<\/i><\/b>\u00a0trans. Marilyn Booth. <\/b>It\u2019s true, Barakat is big on the male protagonist, but with an amazing empathy and sensitivity both to characters and to objects of daily life.<\/p>\n

May: Sahar Khalifeh<\/b>, Of Noble Origins<\/i><\/b>, <\/i>trans. Aida Bamia. Winner of the prestigious Mohamed Zafzaf prize<\/a>, Khalifeh is a strong and prolific author with many novels in English translation. My suggestion is her most recent, in particular because it shows an important historic moment from a woman\u2019s point of view.<\/p>\n

June: Alexandra Chrietieh, Always Coca-Cola,<\/i><\/b>\u00a0<\/i>trans. Michelle Hartman. This book is very much a piece of women\u2019s writing, centered more on the contradictions of daily life than in rising and falling action. It\u2019s also very funny.<\/p>\n

July: Iman Humaydan Younes,\u00a0Wild Mulberries,<\/i><\/b>\u00a0<\/i>trans. Michelle Hartman. There\u2019s also another book of Younes\u2019s coming out this year, trans. Hartman, Other Lives.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

August: Radwa Ashour, Woman of Tantoura.\u00a0<\/i><\/b>I would like to recommend Radwa Ashour\u2019s\u00a0Farag\u00a0<\/i>(which is supposed to be out as\u00a0Blue Lorries\u00a0<\/i>in May), trans. Barbara Romaine, but BQFP has been sliding on deadlines lately. But whenever it\u2019s out, do get it.\u00a0<\/i>Ashour\u2019s\u00a0Spectres\u00a0<\/i>is also a wonderful metafictional view of women\u2019s lives.<\/p>\n

September: Najwa Barakat<\/b>, Salaam!<\/i><\/b>,\u00a0trans. Luke Leafgren.\u00a0This difficult and powerful novel finally brings an important Lebanese author into English.<\/p>\n

October: Iman Mersal, These Are Not Oranges, My Love,<\/i><\/b>\u00a0<\/i>\u00a0Khaled Mattawa. I would like to recommend Mersal\u2019s\u00a0Until I Give Up the Idea of Houses<\/i>, but alas it\u2019s not yet in English. Poems from\u00a0Oranges\u00a0here.<\/a><\/p>\n

November: Miral al-Tahawy, Brooklyn Heights, <\/i><\/b>trans. Samah Selim. All of al-Tahawy\u2019s books deal with women\u2019s lives (this one in New York and Egypt), but this one is additionally translated by an award-winning (woman) translator.<\/p>\n

December:\u00a0Betool Khedairi,\u00a0Absent,\u00a0<\/i><\/b>trans.\u00a0\u00a0Muhayman Jamil. I once had a torrid love affair with this book, which takes us from a vibrant and beautiful mosaic of Baghdad and moves toward the present.<\/p>\n

More, more, more women:<\/b><\/p>\n

Salwa Bakr on \u2018Women and Arabic Literature\u2019<\/a>:\u00a0\u00a0\u201cWhen I first started to write, people would ask me \u2013 \u2018Who wrote this for you?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

6 Arab Women Authors on Why They Write<\/a><\/p>\n

Arab Women Writers:<\/a> A partial bibliography<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also a much longer list of authors at\u00a0http:\/\/arabwomenwriters.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n

And this is an anthology worth having.<\/a><\/p>\n

What does the Arab Writers Union recommend? Women on \u201c<\/b>top 105 Arabic novels of the 20th century<\/b><\/a>\u201d list:<\/b><\/p>\n

Beirut Nightmares<\/i>, by Syrian author Ghada Samman<\/b>, was translated by Nancy N. Roberts and published by Quartet Books in 1998. The book fell out of print, but Quartet Books re-released Beirut Nightmares<\/i> this past September.<\/p>\n

I Live<\/i>, by Lebanese author Leila Baalbaki<\/b>. Published in French \u2013 Je vis!<\/i> Seuil 1958 and in German \u2013 Ich lebe<\/i>, Lenos 1994. Not in English.<\/p>\n

Memory in the Flesh<\/i>, by the Algerian writer Ahlam Mostaghanmi,<\/b> was published by AUC press in 2003 and republished this year as Bridges of Constantine,\u00a0<\/i>trans. Raphael Cohen.<\/p>\n

The Story of Zahra<\/i><\/b>, by the Lebanese writer Hanan al-Shaykh.\u00a0<\/b>I promise you can\u2019t go wrong with this book.<\/p>\n

Wasmiya Comes Out of the Sea<\/i>, by the Kuwaiti author Laila al-Othman<\/b>, was excerpted in Banipal 3<\/i>. The whole book is not in English.<\/p>\n

Granada<\/i><\/b>, by the Egyptian author Radwa Ashour.<\/b> Granada was translated by William Granara (sometimes Bill Granara) and published by Syracuse University Press.<\/p>\n

Door to the Courtyard<\/i><\/b>, by the Palestinian writer Sahar Khalifeh<\/b>. Bab el-Saha<\/i>, however, has not been translated into English. You can find it in German \u2013 Das Tor<\/i> (Unionsverlag, 2004) and French \u2013 L\u2019impasse de bab essaha<\/i> (Flammarion, 1998).<\/p>\n

The Blockade<\/i>, by Bahraini author Fawzia Rasheed.\u00a0<\/b>Not in English.<\/p>\n

Birds of September<\/i>, by the Lebanese author Emily Nasrallah. <\/b>Not in English.<\/p>\n

Birds of The Dawn<\/i>, by the Lebanese author Lily Osseiran.\u00a0<\/b>Not in English.<\/p>\n

A Man from Bashmour<\/i>, by the Egyptian Salwa Bakr,<\/b> was published by AUC Press in a translation by Nancy Roberts.<\/p>\n

The Open Door<\/i>, by Egyptian author Latifa Al-Zayat<\/b>, translated by Marilyn Booth, AUC Press.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

M. LYNX-QUALEY: I’m a less than enthusiastic participant in the ‘Women to Read’ movement but here are some writers worth spending time with. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":30534,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[154,80,5],"tags":[17147,18094,16815,17885,18099,16573,6396,18095,17646,5460,18098,18096,5262,18100,17925,18097],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30532"}],"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=30532"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30532\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30536,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30532\/revisions\/30536"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}