Since Banipal’s last issue, The World of Arab Fiction, was published we have received great feedback: all hugely supportive of the new size and pages and particularly our decision to give each issue a theme. In Banipal 35 we may surprise readers with Writing in Dutch, as we present here ten talented authors who live in the Netherlands and Belgium and write in Dutch, and whose origins are in Morocco, Palestine and Iraq. All ten, explains our guest editor Victor Schiferli in his introduction, are making important contributions, their “new and energetic voices” having enriched and broken “the mould of Dutch literature, taking up themes that had never before been explored”. The authors include Ramsey Nasr, the new Poet Laureate of The Netherlands.

Banipal 35’s other authors include, from Morocco, the distinguished and well-known poet Hassan Najmi, the emerging, original voice of Ouidad Benmoussa, both working in Arabic, and their compatriot Siham Bouhlal writing in French, taking us into the heart of Morocco's vibrant poetry scene. All three visit the UK in July for readings at the Ledbury Poetry Festival and the London Review Bookshop.

We celebrate our continuing collaboration with the AUC Press and Arabia Books with excerpts from forthcoming novels: Cairo Swan Song, the first novel in English translation for the Egyptian author Mekkawi Said, after it was short-listed in the inaugural year of the International Prize for Arabic Fiction; and Papa Sartre, the prize-winning novel of Iraqi author Ali Bader that was reprinted many times.

There’s an excerpt from the highly successful novella The Diesel by the well-known Emirati poet Thani al-Suwaidi, selected poems from the latest collecton of Palestinian-Jordanian poet Ibrahim Nasrallah, and an interview with internationally acclaimed Moroccan author Tahar Ben Jelloun as he launches his novel Leaving Tanger in the UK. We return to another of our regular features, A Travelling Tale, with Syrian author Fouad Yazaji’s Opportunity for a Mirage, set in London.

This issue we pay tribute to our colleague and supporter, the poet James Kirkup, who died on 10 May at the aged of 91.