A very small extract from Nael Eltoukhy’s latest novel-in-process-of-being-published-but-not-published, الخروج من البلاعة (Out of the Gutter).
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An extract from novelist and critic Ibrahim Farghali’s Sawiris Prize-winning novel أبناء الجبلاوي (Dar Al Ain, 2009) [The Sons of Gebelawi]. The works of the late Nobel Laureate Naguib Mahfouz have mysteriously vanished from shelves and stores across Cairo and as the government attempts to grapple with the situation, strange rumours begin to spread:
Three chapters from the first half of Alaa Khaled‘s meditation on the city of his birth وجوه سكندرية (Dar El Shorouk, 2012) [Alexandrian Faces]. One of the most important figures in the development of the prose poem in Egypt he has written six poetry collections, the first published in 1990 and the most recent in 2012, as well as five collections of prose (including this book) and one novel, ألم خفيف كريشة طائر ينتقل بهدوء من مكان لآخر (Dar Al Shorouk, 2009) [A faint pain like a bird’s feather moving gently from place to place]. He is the co-founder and editor of أمكنة [Places], an independent literary magazine issued out of Alexandria and concerned with place and location, which was started in 1990 by Khaled, his wife Salwa Rashad and Mohab Nasr.
An excerpt from Muhamed Abdel Nabi’s very beautiful, moving and clever debut novel رجوع الشيخ (Rawafid, 2012) [The Return of the Sheikh], which was longlisted for the 2013 IPAF. Muhamed has three short story collections to his name, وردة للخونة (General Authority for Cultural Palaces, 2003) [A Rose for the Traitors], شبح أنطون تشيخوف (First Edition: Dar Fikra, 2008; Second Edition: General Egyptian Book Organization, 2012) [The Ghost of Anton Chekhov], which won the 2010 Sawiris Award for short stories by a young writer–with the title story translated here by Anna Swank–and most recently, كما يذهب السيل بقرية نائمة (Merit, 2013) [As the Flood Sweeps Away a Sleeping Village]. Meanwhile, بعد أن يخرج الأمير للصيد (Merit, 2007) [After the Prince Goes Out to Hunt], is a set of seven separate but interrelated texts. And then as if all that isn’t enough he’s a prolific translator from English to Arabic.
An excerpt from الخالق (Kotob Khan, 2013) [The Creator], a novel by Egyptian poet, translator and novelist Ahmed Shafie. The excerpt is in fact a string of passages from the first half of this complex, playful novel; one thread out of many introducing the central story , which is the creation of a city of wonders, populated with automata and equipped with buildings and streets that pop up and down and alter their layout, all located in some unnamed emirate and designed by legendary Japanese architect, Haturi Masanari. Ahmed lives and works in Muscat and has several publications to his name including a couple of poetry collections–وقصائد أخرى (Dar Al Nahda, 2012) [And Other Poems] and طريق جانبي ينتهي بنافورة [A Side Street Ending in a Fountain]–and a novel, رحلة سوسو (General Authority for Cultural Palaces, 2005) [Sousou’s Journey]. He has at least two blogs, here and here.
An extract from Youssef Rakha’s work in progress, the sequel to التماسيح (Dar Al Saqi, 2012) [The Crocodiles], which is due in English translation in Fall 2014 from Seven Stories Press.
An excerpt from the opening of Mohammed Rabie‘s second novel عام التنين (Kotob Khan, 2012) [Year of the Dragon]. Rabie’s first novel, كوكب عنبر (Kotob Khan, 2010) [Amber Planet] won first prize for the youth category in the 2011 Sawiris Awards. The excerpt misses out a small chapter between Tunnel and the letter.
A second excerpt from Youssef Rakha’s التماسيح (Dar Al Saqi, 2012) [The Crocodiles].
An excerpt from Youssef Rakha‘s second novel, التماسيح (Dar Al Saqi, 2012) [The Crocodiles], Arabic excerpts of which can be found on Jadaliyya and Youssef’s website, the arabophile. The novel is composed of four hundred odd numbered paragraphs, hence the numbers.
An excerpt, taken from the opening pages of Nael El Toukhy‘s novella ليلى أنطون (Merit, 2006) [Leila Anton].
qisasukhra 