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Leila Aboulela
Leila Aboulela was born in 1964 in Cairo and grew up in Khartoum. She has a BA in Economics from Khartoum University and an MA in Statistics from the London School of Economics. She is the author of four novels, a collection of short stories and a number of radio plays. Several stories are published in anthologies and broadcast on radio.
She worked as a part-time research assistant while starting to write. She is the author of four novels: The Translator (1999), Minaret (2005), which tells the story of Najwa, an aristocratic Sudanese woman forced into exile in Britain, Lyrics Alley (2010), set in 1950s Sudan and inspired by the life of her poet and songwriter uncle, and The Kindness of Enemies (2015). Several short stories are published in anthologies and broadcast on radio, with “The Museum” winning the inaugural Caine Prize for African Writing in 2000. Her collection of short stories, Coloured Lights, was published in 2001. BBC Radio 4 broadcast a 5-part adaptation of The Translator in 2002, and a dramatization of “The Museum”. She has also had several radio plays broadcast, including The Mystic Life (2003) and The Lion of Chechnya (2005). She lives between Abu Dhabi and Aberdeen.
Her work has been translated into 11 languages.
Contributor's Issues
Banipal 34 - The World of Arab Fiction (2009)
Banipal 55 - Sudanese Literature Today (Spring 2016)
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)
LATEST NEWS
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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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Banipal's first audiobook* * *
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Banipal Book Club
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