Selections of poems and fiction, sampling the richness and variety of the hundreds of authors in the issues. Plus a chance to hear and see a few of the authors in performance.
Selections
Selected Issue: Banipal 68, Short Stories (Summer 2020)
FICTION
A short story from Kuwait
Gypsies! I first heard the word from Sheikh Jasim al-Ahmadi, the religious scholar. When I was ten years old, my family sent me and my cousin Saleh, who was nine months older than me, to spend our summer holidays at the sheikh’s home, for us to have fun and improve our Arabic. The sheikh had a kindly face and spoke as clearly as a BBC announcer. Every morning he would lecture us and other children of the same age on history. He also read us Mutanabbi’s heroic poetry and speeches by famous Arabs.
FICTION
The short story A Smile on his Face
A month ago during the last air raid on our neighbourhood, a shell landed on our street. The shrapnel hit the roof of the bird man Abu al-Tir’s house, who went into the coop to serenade his birds and let them peck seeds off his head every time there was a raid. This time the coop was smashed to smithereens, bird parts and blood were strewn everywhere, but we could not find him or his head.
INTERVIEWS
Mohamed Berrada in conversation with Jonas Elbousty
In this interview, the pioneering Moroccan novelist and critic Mohamed Berrada talks about how he got involved in the world of literature, and about the development of the short story and the novel in Morocco. "Through imagination," Berrada says, "literature has the power to make the world seem other than it is. And this matter is of utmost importance because it moves the reader to liberate their power of imagination to construct different worlds in search of the imaginable."
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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)
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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