- By FATIMA AL-MAZROEUI Translated by KATHARINE HALLS I talk a lot. It’s the quality you know me by—not just you, but my neighbors and the people on my street. Come closer. Don’t move away, and don’t cover your ears, because talking comes instinctively to me, and I get no relief from my exasperation or sadness unless I talk to you. Come closer—don’t…
- By MOHAMED MAKHZANGI Translated by YASMEEN HANOOSH A few days after the sunset-to-sunrise curfew went into effect, the members of this jolly family began to feel run-down. Their apartment had all the needed emergency supplies—food, water, first-aid kit—in addition to entertainment options such as reading materials, television and video programs, and Internet, not to mention a landline and a personal cell…
- By ISMAIL GHAZALI Translated by FADWA AL QASEM Like everyone else on the train to Roskilde, his eye was caught by the woman in the tattered dress handing out candy to all the children in the carriage. When she reached him she gave him a piercing look and said, “Although I usually give candy to children only, you deserve a piece,…
- By WAJDI AL-AHDAL Translated by WILLIAM M. HUTCHINS 1 When the boys playing ball saw the fancy automobile approach, they stopped their game and fixed their eyes on these strangers visiting their neighborhood. Shepherded by her husband, Ali Jibran, Tha’ira descended from the Mercedes in front of a dilapidated three-story building. They left the driver in the car to wonder…
- By ABDERRAZAK BOUKEBBA Translated by ADAM TALIB 1. The Story There was a short story at my door. I ignored it even though I’d been expecting it. I pretended that I needed to take a shower to put on cologne to drink something and melt the sun in its ice to listen to music that escapes from its strings…
- By RASHA ABBAS Translated by ALICE GUTHRIE Your games are upsetting; they always seem like they’re going to end in tears. Like this one you’re playing right now, for example—I’ve just woken up to find myself blindfolded, with my hands tied to the chair I’m sitting on. I don’t like it at all. But I’m smiling at you anyway, expecting…
- By ANIS ARAFAI Translated by RUTH AHMEDZAI KEMP They were first brought together digging up other people’s trash, trying to keep starvation at bay. And since that first encounter at the public dump on the outskirts of Marrakech, the two were inseparable. Abbas gave him the name Minouche and saw him as the son he had never had. Abbas, whose…
- By MOHAMMED KHUDAYYIR Translated by ELISABETH JAQUETTE You may wonder how old this sleepless face is. You may put him to bed in a long-gone mountain garden. Or revive him in the gardens of years to come, centuries from now. That’s where I live, in a dimension unseen by your future eyes, where feather-light cars drive by, and words freeze in…
- By HISHAM BUSTANI Translated by THORAYA EL-RAYYES To Alaa’ Tawalbeh 1 An extinguished cigarette is suspended between my fingers. I don’t know who put it there, but I feel worms moving inside it. When I look at them I imagine I’ve seen them before, tens of small bodies—identical, without any features. The cigarette is a large worm ingesting and regurgitating…
- By AHMED AL-MO'AZZEN Translated by ANDREW LEBER Before my feet even crossed the threshold of the main door, her voice reached me from the courtyard. She appeared from deep within the cloud of dust kicked up by the sweeps of her palm-leaf broom and called out her usual warning: “Don’t you dare play near Khaduj’s[1]ruins!” I reassured her that…
- By ZAKARIA TAMER Translated by MAIA TABET Eat of the Delicacies We Have Bestowed Upon You It was almost time for lunch. The guests had grown tired of oohing and aahing over the properties, the streams, the lakes, the banks, the airplanes, and the beautiful women. “You are about to behold a rare kind of sheep which you will…
- By MALIKA MOUSTADRAF Translated by ALICE GUTHRIE Avenue Mohammed V is silent and desolate this late at night, empty apart from a few stray cats meowing like newborn babies; it’s a creepy sound. Then a she-dog ambles up, stops in front of me, and raises her tail at a black male dog limping past. A single bark of seduction from…
- By AHMAD AL-WASAL Translated by GHADA MOURAD Memory and pain are partners in crime. You will kill pain only by killing memory! I sit facing the coast in a place where I can see the route by which I came. I stand and try to allow the burdens of memory to fall away. I start to slowly raise my hands…
- By HASSOUNA MOSBAHI Translated by WILLIAM M. HUTCHINS The world was still, and Yunus felt alone in existence. He walked along the shore beneath a sky studded with stars. It was his birthday, and he was finally returning home, after his drinking buddies had departed one by one. What was the essence of his solitude? A void and waiting……
- By BASMA AL-NSOUR Translated by ANDREW LEBER 1 My life would have been a lot easier if only my grandmother had not been a liar. Or, to put it more nicely, if she hadn’t been so imaginative on that winter night when she convinced me that she would never leave me. If she had informed me that she would die, then…
- By HILAL CHOUMAN Translated by ANNA ZIAJKA STANTON My Japanese wife Takara told me once that she saw how I turned all things into the substance of a novel. This was fine, she said, but in my relentless pursuit of doing so, I overlooked many aspects of real life. “The things around us are neutral,” she said. “On an…
- By MAHMOUD AL-RAHABI Translated by KATHARINE HALLS We never had carts, only donkeys that trotted along unencumbered. But my imagination sketched a cart onto every donkey I saw. I learned to pray facing a well. My grandfather would stand behind me, reciting the words I was to memorize, and scraping at the ground with a stick that was always ready…
- By ALA HLEHEL Translated by ALICE GUTHRIE The Second Battle March 26 The women were weirdly dressed: short, revealing, feminine dresses over naval uniform trousers. An attractive French woman was topless, her lower half crammed into a pair of tight military trousers, while some of the soldiers living it up down in the belly of the ship were wearing…
- By ESTABRAQ AHMAD Translated by SAWAD HUSSAIN In your stained dishdasha, drooping collar, and sneakers with grimy laces, you stand waiting. You see him poring over a faded paper, its lines glowing red with numbers and scribbles. The paper yells: Overdue payment! Staggered, the grocer asks, “When did you come?” “A few minutes ago.” “I didn’t notice.” “Well, now that…
- By LUAY HAMZA ABBAS Translated by YASMEEN HANOOSH There once was a man who left his home every morning at about six or six-thirty after shaving his face. He sprinkled heavy golden droplets of cologne onto his palm and then patted his cheeks. His cheeks tingled, and he experienced the subtle scent of lemon. The sting and aroma made him…
- By HASSAN BLASIM Translated by JONATHAN WRIGHT “Wait here. We’ll get in touch with you later. Don’t go beyond the confines of the village.” The village seemed to have been abandoned, although there were still goats roaming here and there. I didn’t know how long I would have to wait. To pass the time I wandered in and out of…
- By YOUSSEF RAKHA April 5, 2016 On his last visit to Cairo, the German translator Hartmut Fähndrich was despondent about the lack of interest in contemporary Arabic writing, and he offered this interesting explanation of Western reluctance to engage with Arabic literature: “I think [readers] fear that it will destroy The Thousand and One Nights image they have in their…
- By MOHAMMAD RABIE Translated by MOHAMED EL-SAWI HASSAN It was the first of February 1957, and in the entrance of Prince Abdul Munem’s palace, a young officer stood facing the prince. With the usual sternness, the officer told the prince that he must leave the palace immediately.¹ Without saying a word, the prince went back inside and came out carrying a suitcase. He…
- By MONA MERHI Translated by NARIMAN YOUSSEF The sign outside the shop reads, in big dusty letters, Abu Ramy The Lebanese. In a bid for some familiarity amidst the chaos of this neighborhood, I insist we go in. “Are you Abu Ramy, the Lebanese?” “At your service.” “Are you Lebanese?” “No, I’m Egyptian. But, you see, I lived in Beirut…
- By KHALED SAMEH The Guard of Darkness In the dark depths of this pit, I try to touch the light seeping in through the cracks. My hands clasp nothing but dust, while the silence carries its nightly promise of my everlasting confinement. On the very first night, one thousand years ago, or… wait, why do we always begin…
- By M. LYNX QUALEY Scholars of Arabic literature were, for a time, obsessed with naming a “first” Arabic novel to stand at the head of an apparently new literary tradition. Was it M. H. Haykal’s 1914 Zaynab? Was it one of the many novels that were serialized in popular magazines that sprouted up in Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon in the…
- A compilation of the Visual Art from Issue 11. All What Will Remain. Photography. Bahaa Souki. Toy Men—Plastic Women. Mixed media on wood, 84 x 69 cm, 2012. Bahaa Souki. Decision Keeper. Mixed media on canvas, 100 x 100 cm, 2014. Bahaa Souki. One Arm Man With His Dog. Oil on cotton paper, 95 x 68 cm, 2015. Bahaa Souki. Home, Part…
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Contents
Calligraphy by Nilhad Nadam
Introductions
“A Thousand and One Pebbles” by Youssef Rakha
“A Space for Dreaming” by M. Lynx Qualey
Fiction
Specters & Spectators
“The Abandoned Village” by Hassan Blasim (Translated by Jonathan Wright)
“The Death Shroud” by Abderrazak Boukebba (Translated by Adam Talib)
“A Bouquet” by Fatima Al-Mazrouei (Translated by Katharine Halls)
“Burdens” by Mohammad Rabie (Translated by Mohamed El Sawi Hassan)
“Haphazardia” by Mona Merhi (Translated by Nariman Youssef)
“Four Very Short Stories” by Khaled Sameh (Translated by Nashwa Gowanlock)
“Khaduj Eats Children” by Ahmed Al-Mo’azzen (Translated by Andrew Leber)
“Minouche” by Anis Arafai (Translated by Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp)
Sleeplessness & Asylum
“The Hush Void” by Muhammad Khudayyir (Translated by Elisabeth Jaquette)
“Just Different” by Malika Moustadraf (Translated by Alice Guthrie)
“Fatal Dreams” by Wajdi Al-Ahdal (Translated by William Maynard Hutchins)
“Statement of Absolute Hatred” by Rasha Abbas (Translated by Alice Guthrie)
“The Man Who Was Killed” by Luay Hamza Abbas (Translated by Yasmeen Hanoosh)
“An Owl in Roskilde” by Ismail Ghazali (Translated by Fadwa Al Qasem)
“Rhythmic Exercise” by Mohamed Makhzangi (Translated by Yasmeen Hanoosh)
Disillusionment & Departure
“A Few Moments After Midnight” by Hisham Bustani (Translated by Thoraya El-Rayyes)
“Five Stories” by Zakaria Tamer (Translated by Maia Tabet)
“Ibrahim” by Ahmad Al-Wasel (Translated by Ghada Mourad)
“Vermilion Daze” by Estabraq Ahmad (Translated by Sawad Hussain)
“Yunus on the Beach” by Hassouna Mosbahi (Translated by William Maynard Hutchins)
“Disappointments (and a Few Clarifications)” by Basma Al-Nsour (Translated by Andrew Leber)
“Excerpt from Limbo Beirut” by Hilal Chouman (Translated by Anna Ziajka Stanton)
“The Passing Carts” by Mahmoud Al-Rahabi (Translated by Katharine Halls)
“Excerpt from Au Revoir, Akka” by Ala Hlehel (Translated by Alice Guthrie)
