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This is the last issue of Banipal, the independent literary magazine, marking 25 years of translating and publishing contemporary literature by Arab authors. Arabic literature will always need a magazine like Banipal. In fact, more than one. We're closing at No 75, not because the magazine is no longer necessary but because we, as central producers, can no longer continue.
We no longer have the physical energy necessary, and believe that for such a magazine to continue, there must be new blood, a young staff, with the same enthusiasm and conviction that we have had all these years. We leave behind a massive archive of diverse literature by umpteen different authors that will continue to give readers an endlessly enthralling world of modern Arabic literary works.
Margaret Obank, Publisher
Ardash Kakafian, a painter who looked to the past with a strong nostalgia for Baghdad
Ardash Kakafian, a big man with a huge heart
Writing is a Test and an Ordeal
On Averroes’s Balcony, translated from the French by Nadia Naami and Christina Civantos from Le Cheval de Nietzsche
A short story, translated by Samira Kawar
(online only) CLICK TO READ NOW
A short story
An excerpt from her novel Heaven is More Beautiful from a Distance, translated by Nancy Roberts
He Looked Like Cairo and other poems, translated by Raphael Cohen
Poems from
Bells of the Chaldeans
translated by Raphael Cohen
(online only) CLICK TO READ NOW
Excerpts from the novel
In Search of Aazar
translated by Paul Starkey
Two short stories – Afro-Palestinian Disco and One Fine Day You Find Out You’re An Arab, translated by Jessica Cohen
A short story Al-Qama’ir
translated by Becki Maddock
Excerpts from
The Café Riche – An Eye on Egypt
translated by Jonathan Wright
Winner of the 2022 Sheikh Zayed Book Award, Literature. category
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Reading on the Fat of One’s Heart
translated by Jonathan Wright
A Short story
Human Clusters
translated by Jonas Elbousty
(online only) CLICK TO READ NOW
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A Letter to Denys Johnson-Davies
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Trino Cruz reviews The Stone Serpent, Barates of Palmyra’s Elegy for Regina his Beloved, by Nouri Al-Jarrah
Jaafar Al-Aluni introduces the Spanish edition of Adoniada by Adonis
Susannah Tarbush reviews The Night Will Have Its Say by Ibrahim Al-Koni
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Joselyn Michelle Almeida reviews The Water People by Vénus Khoury-Ghata
Stephanie Petit reviews Mister N by Najwa Barakat
Fayez Ghazi reviews Nihayat al-Sahra’ (The End of the Desert) by Saïd Khatibi
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Hannah Somerville reviews No Windmills in Basra by Diaa Jubaili
Stephen Watts reviews Stigma by Yaseen Ghaleb
Sara Slim reviews Villa al-Fusul al-Arb‘a (Four Seasons Villa) by Ibrahim Saadi
. . .
The Threshold by Iman Mersal, translated and introduced by Robyn Creswell. • Warda by Sonallah Ibrahim, translated by Hosam Aboul-Ela • The Drowning by Hammour Ziada, translated by Paul Starkey
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Birth by Abdelaziz Baraka Sakin, translated by Adil Babiki • Fountain of the Drowning by Reem Bassiouney, translated by Roger Allen • Among the Almond Trees, a Palestinian Memoir by Hussain Barghouthi, translated and introduced by Ibrahim Muhawi
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The Turban and the Hat by Sonallah Ibrahim • Bitter Orange Tree by Jokha Alharthi • The Lady of Zamalek by Ashraf El-Ashmawi
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Come, Take a Gentle Stab: Selected Poems by Salim Barakat • Roundabout of Death by Faysal Khartash • Planet of Clay by Samar Yazbek
Christina Civantos, Jessica Cohen, Raphael Cohen, Trino Cruz, Jonas Elbousty, Samira Kawar, Becki Maddock, Nadia Naami, Nancy Roberts, Paul Starkey, Jonathan Wright
For information about all contributors – authors, translators, reviewers, editors – to this issue and others, go to https://www.banipal.co.uk/contributors/
UK representation and sales
Selections from this issue
Jamila Omairah – Short story by Jamila Omairah
Jamal Fayez – A Short Story Human Clusters
Walid Hermiz – Four Poems from Bells of the Chaldeans