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Banipal 63 – The 100 Best Arabic Novels
is available as a paperback (ISBN 9780995636972)
or as part of a digital or a print subscription

Cover Painting
Ahmed Morsi: The Fish Eye Acrylic on canvas 213cm x 127 cm, New York City 2012

EDITORIAL

HAYAT SHARARA (1935-1997)

Remembering an excellent Iraqi intellectual

Balkis Sharara: She felt she was under surveillance at the university

Fadhil Chalabi: Heroic outcry against injustice

Hayat Sharara: An excerpt from the novel When the Days Grow Dark, translated by Jonathan Wright

THREE EGYPTIAN AUTHORS

Girgis Shukry: Three Poems, translated by Paul Starkey

Azza Rashad: A short story Prickly Jasmine, translated by Jonathan Wright

Mekkawi Said: “The enchantment of Reem”, an excerpt from his novel To Be Loved by Jihan, translated by Ahmed Salah Eldein

Ahmed Salah Eldein writes about the late Mekkawi Said (1956–2017) and the novel

CELEBRATING AHMED MORSI

The Biography          

Alfonso Armada: The door to the beach of time

Salah Awad: Ahmed Morsi the Poet

Ahmed Morsi: Photos from the New York Album, translated by Raphael Cohen

THE 100 BEST ARABIC NOVELS

Introduction by Samuel Shimon

Ranked according to the number of nominations each title received, with a synopsis and author biography. Some authors have more than one title listed.

ESSAY

Stephan Milich: The Poet as Excavator – Ghassan Zaqtan’s Museum of Words

OBITUARY

Bassam Frangieh: Hanna Mina – Pioneer of Social Realism in Modern Arabic Literature

BOOK REVIEWS

Susannah Tarbush – Sophia: or the Beginning of All Tales by Rafik Schami

Becki Maddock – Tales of Yusuf Tadrus by Adel Esmat

Ruth Padel – A Boat to Lesbos and Other Poems by Nouri Al-Jarrah

Peter Kalu – Baghdad Noir ed. Samuel Shimon

Bill Swainson – States of Passion by Nihad Sirees

Chip Rosetti – A Cloudy Day on the Western Shore by Mohamed Mansi Qandil

Hannah Somerville – In the Spider’s Room by Muhammad Abdelnabi

Aldo Nicosia – Al-Digla fi ‘Arajiniha (Dates in their Branches) by Béchir Khraief

Clare Roberts – Four brief reviews: Outclassed in Kuwait by Taleb Alrefai, Cigarette Number Seven by Donia Kamal, One Syrian Summer by Dorothy Al Khafaji and A Moroccan Anthology: Travel Writing through the Centuries, edited by Martin Rose

BOOKS RECEIVED

EVENTS

Assilah Festival 2018

The translators of the issue are: Adel Babikir, Raphael Cohen, Najlaa Eltom, Ahmed Salah Eldein, Paul Starkey, Jonathan Wright

Special thanks to Rosie Maxton and Valentina Viena for compiling the synopses and biographies for "The 100 Best Arabic Novels".

For information about all contributors to Banipal's issues – authors, writers, reviewers, illustrators, artists, and of course, all translators – check out their individual webpage from the alphabetical list of family names at http://www.banipal.co.uk/contributors/