Naima El Bezaz
(b. Meknes, Morocco, 1974) made her debut with the novel De weg naar het noorden [The Road to the North], 1995, which was awarded the Jenny Smelik Ibby Prize. She has since published novels such as Minnares van de duivel [The Devil's Mistress], 2002, and De verstotene [The Outcast], 2006. When this last novel was published, she received many threats from the Muslim community in The Netherlands because of the critical comments on society it contained, as well as its explicit scenes. She suffered from depression and returned with Het gelukssyndroom [The Happiness Syndrome], 2008, an autobiographical novel that focused on the recent events in her life.
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Banipal No 35 Writing in Dutch
Latest News
06/02/2012At a celebration of literary translation on Monday 6 February at Kings Place, Khaled Mattawa will receive the 2011 Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation.
[read more]03/02/2012
The Mosaic Rooms celebrates theartistic and poetic works of the great Syrian poet Adonis with talks and events from 3-8 February and an exhibition of Adonis's collages from 3 February until 30 March. The opening evening this Friday sees Adonis in conversation with Khaled Mattawa who is the winner of the 2011 Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for his translation Adonis: Selected Poems.
[read more]16/01/2012
Khaled Mattawa wins the 2011 Saif Ghobash-Banipal Translation Prize for Adonis:Selected Poems
[read more]12/01/2012
Chair of IPAF Judges Georges Tarabichi announces the shortlist authors of the 2012 International Prize for Arabic Fiction.
[read more]09/01/2012
Banipal Book Club's first book for discussion is The Tobacco Keeper by Ali Bader.
[read more]08/01/2012
Ibrahim Aslan, one of Egypt's best-loved authors, has died of heart failure at the age of 77.
[read more][read all news stories]