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Friday Reads: April 2016

April 15, 2016 Reviews

By BARBARA MAYER, KELCEY PARKER ERVICK, SUJATA SHEKAR, MELODY NIXON

Politics and history crackle through the plotlines of our recommended books this month, as we travel the world experiencing struggle and mourning in a many-layered collage of contexts. Here are four varied works of “healing imagination,” as books both simple and unconventional examine trauma unflinching and then look to what happens next.

Recommended:

Nora Webster by Colm Toibin, Book of Ruth by Robert Seydel, The Association of Small Bombs by Karan Mahajan, Jam on the Vine by LaShonda Katrice Barnett

Issue 11 Art

April 6, 2016 Issue 11, Issue 11 Art

A compilation of the Visual Art from Issue 11.

Metallic face sculptures

All What Will Remain. Photography. Bahaa Souki.

Collage Toy Men—Plastic Women. Mixed media on wood, 84 x 69 cm, 2012. Bahaa Souki.

Collage

Decision Keeper. Mixed media on canvas, 100 x 100 cm, 2014. Bahaa Souki.

Painting-- man walking a dog

One Arm Man With His Dog. Oil on cotton paper, 95 x 68 cm, 2015. Bahaa Souki.

Two people holding one another

Home, Part 1. Photography, 105 x 70 cm, 2013. Ons Ghimagi.

Two people sitting back to back

Home, Part 2. Photography, 105 x 70 cm, 2013. Ons Ghimagi.

Woman sitting against a wall on the phone

In the Mood for Love. Photography, 105 x 70 cm, 2013. Ons Ghimagi.

Sculpture of a figure 010. Oil on canvas, 100 x 120 cm, 2004. Bader Mahasneh.

Figure sitting 017. Archival print of 3 editions, 90 x 90 cm, 2010. Bader Mahasneh.

Painting Tamimi Untitled. Acrylic on canvas, 175 x 95 cm, 2015.

Painting of three figures under an umbrella

Untitled. Acrylic on canvas, 80 x 80 cm, 2015.

Figure in red

Untitled. Acrylic on canvas, 80 x 80 cm, 2015.

Collage of children and birds

Child’s Message (1). Mixed media on canvas, 100 x 100 cm, 2014.

Collage of child angels over building

Cold Breezes. Mixed media on canvas, 100 x 100 cm, 2012.

Collage of children and buildings

Dialogue. Mixed media on canvas, 200 x 100 cm, 2015.

Photograph of dancers

The Original Fall. Photography. Bahaa Souki.

Author Panel at Forbes Library

April 6, 2016 News and Events

Event Date:

Wednesday, April 13, 2016 – 7:00pm – 9:00pm

Location:

Forbes Library, 20 West St, Northampton, MA 01060

On Wednesday, April 13, at 7 PM, the Forbes Library will host a panel discussion and Q&A with The Common, featuring novelist Edie Meidav, podcast editor Steven Tagle, and Editor-in-Chief Jennifer Acker. Each will read briefly from recent work, discuss balancing the writing and teach life, and talk about The Common‘s role in the literary landscape here in the Valley and around the world.

A Space for Dreaming

April 5, 2016 Arabic Fiction, Essays, Issue 11, Issue 11 Essays

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 late 1800s and early 1900s? Or perhaps Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq’s peripatetic, language-glorifying Leg Over Leg (1855)? Never mind that al-Shidyaq mocked the obsessions of European writing.

Four Very Short Stories

April 5, 2016 Arabic Fiction, Fiction, Issue 11, Issue 11 Fiction, Translation

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 our stories with the first night? There is absolutely no difference between what happened in that distant time and what is happening now. The same columns of men march beneath the sun’s rays in the afternoon’s scorching heat, the same tear-soaked supplications and hymns: “O God, make his grave a green pasture in the gardens of Paradise—don’t cast him into a burning pit of hell.” “O God, grant him a better spouse than the one he has, a better home, and better children.” “O God, forgive his sins and those of your faithful worshippers.”

Haphazardia

April 5, 2016 Arabic Fiction, Fiction, Issue 11, Issue 11 Fiction, Translation

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.”

Burdens

April 5, 2016 Arabic Fiction, Fiction, Issue 11, Issue 11 Fiction, Translation

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 smiled at the officer and walked toward the southern wall of the palace.

At first the officer was astounded by this, as there was only one entrance to the palace and it was located in the northern wall. His amazement only grew as he watched the prince open the door of a room built against the southern wall and step inside it. Thinking he must have been duped and that his assignment had not been successfully completed, the officer went into the room and yelled furiously at the prince, threatening to use force to get him out of the palace. But the prince claimed that because the room was not part of the palace and he did not actually own it, he was still allowed to stay and live in it. He told the officer that his father had given the little room away a long time ago. He also informed him that Sheikh Abu Annoor was buried inside. He pointed to a structure in the middle of the room covered with a thin rug. “Don’t you see the tomb?” he asked. He then whirled his forefinger around in the air, pointing around the room, and asked the officer: “Would you really nationalize a shrine?”

A Thousand and One Pebbles

April 5, 2016 Arabic Fiction, Essays, Issue 11, Issue 11 Essays

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 minds.” One might argue about the number of potential German book buyers who have the timeless classic lodged in their minds, but even those who do need not worry. No one writing today could possibly live up to the lack of sophistication, unadorned sensuality, and aimless fantasizing found in The Thousand and One Nights.

The Abandoned Village

April 5, 2016 Arabic Fiction, Fiction, Issue 11, Issue 11 Fiction, Translation

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 the abandoned houses. I felt tired, but I wasn’t sure whether sleeping had a place in my new life. I went up on the roof of one of the houses and looked out over the neighborhood. The smoke of battle was rising from the nearby towns, and two military helicopters were skimming along the horizon. Fields of cotton surrounded the village on all sides. I had never before had a chance to see cotton flowers. Or maybe I’d seen them in documentaries and other films; I don’t exactly remember. I had spent my life working in a bakery, then as a taxi driver, and finally as a prison guard. When the revolution broke out, I joined the resistance. I fought to my last breath. The cotton flowers looked like snowflakes, but they would have had to be artificial or else the fierce rays of the sun would have melted them all.

Arabic Night at Amherst College

April 5, 2016 News and Events

Event Date:

Friday, April 8, 2016 – 6:00pm – 9:00pm

Location:

Amherst College

On Friday, April 8, from 6-9 PM, The Common and the Five College Arabic Initiative will co-host the Fifth Annual Arabic Night. The night will feature the launch of The Common‘s eleventh issue, Tajdeed (Renewal), a special issue dedicated solely to translated contemporary Arabic fiction. In addition, the night will feature Professor John Eisele, professor and Director of the Arabic Studies Program at the College of William and Mary, as well as live Arabic music performed by the Layaali Music Ensemble, a Middle Eastern dinner and various student performances.