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Mo Mesrati
Mo Mesrati was born in 1990 in Tripoli, Libya. He started publishing his short stories at an early age on Kikah.com and several literary websites in Arabic. In 2010, he joined Ghazi Gheblawi to produce and present Imtidad Podcast, a cultural series of podcasts focusing on arts and literature in the Arab world and Britain.
When the Libyan uprisings started on February 2011, Mesrati became involved as an activist, and later on as an investigative journalist at El Kef newspaper. His work featured in several anthologies and magazines including Banipal 40 – Libyan Fiction (March 2011) and Writing Revolution: The Voices from Tunis to Damascus (I B Tauris, 2013). He published his first collection of short stories marciapiede in 2014. He lives in London.
In July 2012, Christopher Haydon, artistic director of the Gate Theatre, Notting Hill in West London, invited him to put on a reading from his essay "Bayou and Leila", and discuss the events in Libya. The reading followed a performance of Iraqi playwriter Hassan Abdulrazzak's play The Prophet about the Egyptian revolution.
Mo Mesrati was interviewed afterwards by the Tanjara Blogspot, run by Susannah Tarbush. Click here for the interview.
He was previously interviewed in 2011 by Tanjara. To read that interview, click here.
Contributor's Issues
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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