Banipal issues include reviews of some of the latest works by Arab authors, either from their original editions or as published in translation, presenting a combination of reviews in works in English, Arabic, French or German.
Book Reviews
Banipal 75
Mister N
This seventh novel of Lebanese author Najwa Barakat is translated by Luke Leafgren. Set in contemporary Beirut, it is a challenging and multi-faceted story about intergenerational trauma, the horrors of war and their effect on the emotional and psychological lives of those who bear witness to it, with a quite unexpected twist at the end.
Banipal 75
The Night Will Have Its Say
by prize-winning Libyan writer Ibrahim al-Koni, translated by Nancy Roberts, recounts the Muslim invasions of North Africa in the late seventh and early eighth centuries CE, mainly through the eyes of two protagonists: the Berber Queen al-Kahina and the Arab Muslim commander General Hassan ibn al-Nu‘man.
Banipal 75
Nihayat al-Sahra’ – (The End of the Desert)
Holding Saïd Khatibi's latest novel, Nihayat al-Sahra’, in one’s hands is like holding the pair of scissors pictured at the base of the cover: its sharp edges keep readers alert amidst the cascade of events that unfold throughout the narrative. Khatibi’s masterful retelling of the events assembled between its pages creates a perfect mosaic.
Banipal 74
The Men Who Swallowed the Sun by Hamdi Abu Golayyel
Hamdi Abu Golayyel’s novel, The Men who Swallowed the Sun, translated by the late Humphrey Davies and published by Hoopoe Fiction, is an entertaining picaresque tale, which focuses on Egyptian migrants who make the difficult, grueling journey to Italy through Libya.
Banipal 73
Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear by Mosab Abu Toha
With this breakthrough debut collection Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear, Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha, Founder Director of the Edward Said Library in Gaza, joins an extraordinary group of poets, intellectuals, and writers who have given voice to the resilience of the Palestinian people since the Nakba in 1948.
Banipal 73
The Girl with Braided Hair
The winner of the 2021 Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation, this novel – authored by Rasha Adly and superbly translated by Sarah Enany – is an absorbing tale of two women living parallel lives over 200 years apart, their narratives connected by a painting.
Banipal 73
Jarima lam Taktubha Agatha Cristie (A Crime That Agatha Christie Didn’t Write)
In his latest novel, A Crime That Agatha Christie Didn’t Write, Iraqi author Yousif Abu Al-Fawz weaves a together two main narratives into a mystery crime story, breaking the timelines between them as it progresses.
Banipal 73
Shatt al-Arwah (Beach of Souls)
The vast critical debate stirred up by the publication of Emna Rmili's novel quickly made it one of the most important of 2020, concerning as it does the stories of people who leave with unlimited dreams yet return to their countries in coffins, or as mere news, having been swallowed up by the deadly sea or thrown by the waves, nameless, onto the shore.
Banipal 72
The Madness of Despair by Ghalya F T Al Said
In this novel the Omani fiction writer, poet and museum founder Ghalya F T Al Said explores the love triangle between three Arab émigrés living in London: Maliha, her husband Nafie and their friend Nadim, an urbane and successful doctor.
Banipal 72
Sarajevo Firewood by Saïd Khatibi
This third novel by Algerian writer and journalist Saïd Khatibi, translated from the Arabic by Paul Starkey, is a masterful rumination on war and genocide, place-memory, independent inquiry and self-actualization.
Banipal 71
Ma Taraktu Khalfi – Things I Left Behind
Hardly had the promising young Palestinian writer Shada Mustafa published her debut novel entitled Things I Left Behind (Ma Taraktu Khalfi) (Dar Naufal, 2020) than she was shortlisted for the 2021 Sheikh Zayed Book Award for young authors.
Banipal 71
Booq (Trumpet)
This novel by Libyan writer and novelist Mohammad al-Asfar bears a dual purpose. On the one hand, it is a token of the author’s loyalty and gratitude to Germany, the adoptive home that embraced him. On the other, it juxtaposes love and hate, war and peace, Germany and Libya in World War II, and East and West through the language of music.
Banipal 71
Al-Ishtiyaq ila al-Jarah (Longing for the Woman Next Door)
The novel Al-Ishtiyaq ila al-Jarah (Longing for the Woman Next Door) by Tunisian writer Habib Selmi, published in 2020, contends from the outset, beginning with the title itself, that the object of desire is unattainable and that longing presupposes distance or separation . . .
Banipal 70
Fugitive Atlas: Poems by Khaled Mattawa
Khaled Mattawa effortlessly navigates between Middle Eastern, American, and World literary traditions in Fugitive Atlas (2020), his most recent poetic tour de force . . . and render a deeply elegiac map of humanity’s shared planetary experience in the first decades of the 21st Century.
Banipal 70
Agadir by Mohammed Khair-Eddine
Agadir is not your average novel. Sometimes described as a hybrid novel, it is not a novel in any conventional sense. Mohammed Khaïr-Eddine’s intense writing intentionally subverts traditional literary models. He intends to shock, and described his writing as a “guérilla linguistique”.
Banipal 70
Mordechai’s Moustache and his Wife’s Cats and other stories
These tales are fleeting, ethereal, often sad but never moribund, and infused with humanist sensibility, emerging in turn as a love letter to the short story and individual striving.
Banipal 69
Mama Hissa’s Mice
Saud Alsanousi’s fourth novel, Mama Hissa’s Mice, is an arresting Kuwaiti bildungsroman. It covers a period of more than 40 years in Kuwait, from the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, to the 1990 Iraqi invasion, to the post-9/11 years, and finally to a feverish, infernal near-future in which the country is burning in the throes of all-out sectarian warfare.
Banipal 69
The Libyan Novel
Dr Charis Olszok’s book is an insightful and stimulating addition to the Edinburgh Studies in Modern Arabic Literature series, published by Edinburgh University Press. She takes a fresh and original approach in, for example, situating her study of the Libyan novel within the fields of animal studies and ecocriticism.
Banipal 69
‘Ush al-Jamr
Zuheir al-Hiti’s fourth novel, ‘Ush al-Jamr (Embers’ Den), is a journey into Iraq’s heart of darkness that explores a process of political, social and cultural descent into a frenzied state of primordial, violent chaos, and in which is depicted the religious, sectarian and cultural intolerance that he believes has permeated Iraqi society for decades.
Banipal 68
The Slave Yards by Najwa Bin Shatwan
This third novel by Libyan writer Najwa Bin Shatwan, The Slave Yards (Zarayib al-Abid), shortlisted for the 2017 International Prize for Arab Fiction, is set in 19th century Libya, then under Ottoman rule. Its title refers to the real-life encampments on the outskirts of Benghazi where most of the country’s slaves and former slaves were held at the time.
Banipal 68
Velvet by Huzama Habayeb
Velvet is Huzama Habayeb’s third novel and marks a high point in her writing career, with the Arabic original, Mukhmal, awarded the 2017 Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature. It was hailed by the judges as “a new kind of Palestinian novel” that wrote about the “everyday lives of Palestinians”, and about the “human condition” through its portrayal of woman.
Banipal 67
Elias Khoury’s The Kingdom of Strangers
Elias Khoury’s The Kingdom of Strangers wrestles with issues of Lebanese identity and memory, using a fractured, non-linear narrative to reflect the fracturing of society during the Lebanese Civil War. Published in Arabic in 1993 and in 1996 in Paula Haydar’s excellent English translation.
Banipal 67
Daughter of the Tigris by Muhsin Al-Ramli
The novel chronicles Qisma’s odyssey through a changed Iraqi in the company of Tariq. Her search for her father’s headless body is the main axis of the plot, around which Al-Ramli weaves an expansive, digressive saga rich in sub-plots.
Banipal 66
The Book of Collateral Damage by Sinan Antoon
Translated by Jonathan Wright, this fourth novel of Sinan Antoon is loosely based on when he revisited Baghdad in 2003 to make a documentary, having left Iraq in 1991 after the beginning of the Gulf War. Blurring of fiction and reality is an important theme.
Banipal 66
The Fetishists: The Tuareg Epic by Ibrahim al-Koni
In his author’s note to the translation, the Libyan Tuareg novelist Ibrahim al-Koni recounts the actual incident that inspired the novel – a bet. Whoever succeeded in scaling a certain tall cliff face in the Tadrart mountain range in Libya would win 100 camels.
Banipal 65
Praise for the Women of the Family by Mahmoud Shukair
Praise for the Women of the Family is a most welcome addition to the body of Shukair’s work available in English translation. Its Arabic original was shortlisted for the 2016 International Prize for Arabic Fiction, and it is the second volume of Mahmoud Shukair's Jerusalem trilogy.
Banipal 64
The Arab Renaissance: A Bilingual Anthology of the Nahda
To the ordinary reader, reading Arabic literature in translation today, the title The Arab Renaissance might be a little perplexing. What Renaissance? and when? The Nahda period covers roughly a hundred years, ending almost 100 years ago. It was a time of burgeoning Arab cultural and political modernity.
Banipal 63
A Boat to Lesbos by Nouri al-Jarrah
Ruth Padel writes:
The island of Lesbos, also called Mytilene, is on the edge of Europe. You see Turkey three and a half miles away, on the hazy horizon . . . Until 2015, though, the island was most famous for three things; its petrified forest, the best ouzo in Greece, and poetry.
Banipal 63
States of Passion by Nihad Sirees
Bill Swainson writes:
Nihad Sirees's skill as a historical novelist comes to the fore as an old man, on a dark and stormy night, tells the story of a doubly forbidden love affair between the old man in his youth and an innocent young dancer called Widad from Aleppo.
Banipal 62
Ibn Khaldun, An Intellectual Biography
Ibn Khaldun was a polymath and has been seen as anticipating the theories of Charles Darwin and Karl Marx, among others. He was certainly a great inspiration to Arnold Toynbee (1889–1975), but has also been an influence on the science fiction of Isaac Asimov and Frank Herbert. Robert Irwin writes with authority, and his book is a delight to read.
Banipal 62
The Baghdad Clock
Shahad Al Rawi’s novel describes in colourful detail the Baghdad neighbourhood in which its young protagonist grows up, in the period between the First Gulf War and the present, while many of the rhetorical questions posed by the young protagonist reveal her anger towards the outside world for the pain it has inflicted on her country.
Banipal 61
Frankenstein in Baghdad
Iraqi author Ahmed Saadawi’s novel is a profound, powerful and extraordinarily imaginative work. Part thriller, part horror story, part supernatural fantasy, part meditation on violence and justice, it is both harrowing and darkly comic.
Banipal 61
All the Battles
A novel about sport is a new thing in Arabic. Jordanian author Maan Abu Taleb acknowledges the linguistic challenges of writing in a novel about boxing, that is also about the universal human predicament, and thus the experimental nature of the Arabic version.
Banipal 60
The Book of Safety
Yasser Abdel Hafez’s wonderful satire on modern-day Cairo is by no means a quick, easy ‘lit-fix’ read. Rich, profound and with a depth of imagination and whip-smart narrative stratigraphy, it won the 2017 Saif Ghobash Banipal Translation Prize.
Banipal 60
Tuyour al-Nab’a Birds of al-Nab’a by Abdallah Uld Mohamadi Bah
Mauritanians have such a passion for poetry that their country is widely known as the land of a million poets.
Banipal 60
Farewell, Damascus by Ghada Samman
Ghada Samman’s latest novel in English translation, Farewell, Damascus, was published in Arabic in 2014 and is set in mid-sixties Damascus and Beirut.
Banipal 60
No Road to Paradise by Hassan Daoud
Hassan Daoud is the author of ten novels and three short story collections, and has recently been described as ‘one of Lebanon’s most important living writers’.
Banipal 59
The President’s Gardens by Muhsin al-Ramli
“In a land without bananas, the village awoke to nine banana crates, each containing the severed head of one of its sons . . . Each head had a story.
Banipal 58
Al-Khaima al-Baidha’ (The White Tent) by Liana Badr
In her many works the writer and filmmaker Liana Badr documents the different stages of Palestinian national struggle against occupation and chronicles the Palestinian diaspora experience, including the Nakba of 1948.
Banipal 58
Saba’t Gurabaa’ fil-Madina (Seven Strangers in Town)
“Sergeant Abdel Hai’s job was to keep an eye all night on the insurgents held in custody at the military garrison, and hand them over at dawn to the firing squad.
Banipal 57
The Ninety-Ninth Floor by Jana Fawaz El Hassan
The novel is a frank look at love between two conflicting characters: their deep and divisive family roots, irreconcilable backgrounds, and the underlying forces that hold them together, set in both New York and Lebanon.
Banipal 57
No Knives in the Kitchens of this City by Khaled Khalifa
No Knives in the Kitchens of this City tells the story of the decline of a Syrian family over a period of sixty years. There are no winners in a country where freedom is limited not only by the regime, but also by the fear of other people’s judgement.
Banipal 56
The Televangelist
The novel follows the fortunes of celebrity sheikh Hatem el-Shenawi, exposing the tensions within Egyptian society and the complex web of the country’s power structures . . . drawing a portrait of contemporary Egyptian society.
Banipal 56
The Jungo: Stakes of the Earth
When The Jungo Stakes of the Earth was published in Arabic in Sudan in 2009 it won the national Tayeb Salih literary prize but in 2010 every copy was confiscated and burned by the Sudanese authorities.
Banipal 54
My Torturess
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.
Banipal 54
Hurma
Ali Al-Muqri’s work . . . approaches the traditional ‘three taboos’ of politics, religion and sex (mainly the last two) with a directness and vigour that are all too rare in contemporary Arabic writing.
Banipal 54
Who's Afraid of Meryl Streep
This novel . . . is a parody of the man-woman relationship in Lebanese society today, divided between tradition and modernity . . . in which the author challenges his own society and its contradictions.
Banipal 53
The Broken Mirrors/Sinalcol
The author's skill and experience, both as a writer and a storyteller, are brought to bear in this novel as he explores the disruptive and destructive effects of civil war on the residents of Beirut’s divided city.
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Thieves in Retirement by Hamdi Abu Golayyel
Through the eyes of a recent Bedouin migrant to the city, we are introduced to Building No. 36 in a relatively new sprawling neighbourhood outside Cairo.
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Memories in Translation: A Life between the Lines of Arabic Literature by Denys Johnson-Davies
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The Tent Generations
Things I Left Behind by Shada Mustafa, translated by Nancy Roberts
Shadow of the Sun by Taleb Alrefai
Birds of Nabaa, A Mauritanian Tale by Abdallah Uld Mohamadi Bah
The Stone Serpent, Barates of Palmyra’s Elegy for Regina his Beloved by Nouri Al-Jarrah
Mansi A Rare Man in His Own Way by Tayeb Saleh (Banipal Books, 2020)
Tayeb Salih
Goat Mountain by Habib Selmi
Habib Selmi, author of Goat Mountain and 3 times shortlisted for the IPAF
The Mariner by Taleb Alrefai (Banipal Books, 2020)
Taleb Alrefai, author of Shadow of the Sun and The Mariner
Digital images
Fadhil Al-Azzawi's Beautiful Creatures by Fadhil al-Azzawi (Banipal Books, 2021)
Fadhil al-Azzawi
Poems of Alexandria and New York by Ahmed Morsi (Banipal Books, 2021)
Digital Banipal promotion B67
Saïd Khatibi
Amjad Nasser (1955–2019)
Digital Banipal the full archive
Denys Johnson-Davies (1922–2017) 70 years translating Arabic literature
Ahmed Morsi, author of Poems of Alexandria and New York
Sarajevo Firewood
The Madness of Despair
Mahmoud Shukair – see special feature of Banipal 70 (Spring 2021)
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Link to poems by Mosab Abu Toha, published in Banipal 71 (Summer 2021), available to read online
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Link to poem by Liana Badr published in Banipal 74, now available as an online selection
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GRIFFIN PRIZE SHORTLIST 2023
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