Receive Our Newsletter
For news of readings, events and new titles.
Hassouna Mosbahi (1950 – 4 June 2025)
Hassouna Mosbahi was born in 1950 in Kairouan, Tunisia, and is a writer, literary critic and freelance journalist in German and Arab newspapers.
He lived in Munich for twenty years from 1985, and in 2000 won the Tukan Preis (Toucan Prize), the annual literary award of the city of Munich for the best new publication by a Munich author. In Hassouna's case the book was the German translation by Regina Karashouli of his novel Rückkehr nach Tarschisch [Tarshish Hallucination].
He has published, in Arabic and German, four volumes of short stories, a novel, a travel book and some non-fiction. His short story, "The Tortoise", was short-listed for the second year of the Caine Prize for African Writing in 2001, after being published in Banipal magazine of modern Arab literature no 6, Autumn 1999.
A Tunisian Tale (AUC Press, 2011, translator Max Weiss) was his first novel in English translation. Hassouna Moshabi was awarded the 2016 Mohamed Zefzef Prize for FIction of the Assilah Forum, Morocco.
Other novels in translation included Wadaʻan Rawzali (Adieu Rosalie), translated into German by Erdmute Heller, and two novels with Syracuse University Press, both translated by William M Hutchins – the first Yatim al-dahr (Orphan of an era), 2012, published in 2022 entitled Solitaire, and later We Never Swim in the Same River Twice published in 2024 (Arabic original لا نَسْبَحُ في النَّهْرِ مَرَّتَيْنِ Dar al-Adab, 2020). The latter is reviewed here on The Modern Novel website https://www.themodernnovel.org.
. 
. 
Contributor's Issues
Banipal 10 - /11, Spring 2001/Summer 2001
Banipal 34 - The World of Arab Fiction (2009)
Banipal 69 - 9 New Novels (Autumn/Winter 2020)
Banipal 66 - Travels (Autumn/Winter 2019)
Banipal 62 - A Literary Journey through Arab Cinema (2018)
Banipal 71 - Salutes Ihsan Abdel Kouddous (Summer 2021)
Banipal 49 - A Cornucopia of Short Stories (2014)
Banipal 60 - Alaa al-Deeb, A Writer Apart (Autumn/Winter 2017)
Banipal 39 - Modern Tunisian Literature (2010)
An Iraqi in Paris by Samuel Shimon
The Cinderellas of Muscat by Huda Hamed (Banipal Books, 2025)
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
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)
Saïd Khatibi
Amjad Nasser (1955–2019)
Digital Banipal the full archive
Ahmed Morsi, author of Poems of Alexandria and New York
Sarajevo Firewood
The Madness of Despair
LATEST NEWS
* * *
Reprint out now
* * *
* * *
* * *
.png)
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
Link to poems by Mosab Abu Toha, published in Banipal 71 (Summer 2021), available to read online
* * *
Link to poem by Liana Badr published in Banipal 74, now available as an online selection
* * *
* * *
GRIFFIN PRIZE SHORTLIST 2023
* * *
* * *
* * *
Banipal's first audiobook* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
Banipal Book Club
* * *
