Receive Our Newsletter
For news of readings, events and new titles.
Although lockdowns are stopped, and most restrictions have been lifted there is still concern of upticks in the virus spread, and so we are continuing to work remotely. Meanwhile, all orders for the print editions of our books and for the Banipal magazines are being received and fulfilled as usual. Our distributor IPSUK is working safely, despatching all orders on our behalf. For books despatched within the UK, delivery is back to the usual quick turnround, while for orders outside the UK there are some delays here and there, apart from the special case of the EU – see above for those details. We are checking regularly with Royal Mail for any new restrictions on mailing.
Stay safe and well. Get your vaccinations. If in doubt, wear your mask.
* * * * * * * *
Download 2022 Banipal catalogue
Pbk • eBook • 144pp
Things I Left Behind is young Palestinian author Shada Mustafa’s debut novel – a free-flowing narrative that interrogates, in short, direct sentences, the memories of growing up, the trauma of her parents' divorce, the Qalandia checkpoint, falling in love, that keep forcing themselves out to be reckoned with.
Pbk • eBook • 160pp
The Tent Generationsm, Palestinian Poems adds an urgent poetic dimension to our understanding of the still unfolding history of the Palestinian people, whether dispersed from their homeland into the diaspora, or enduring or living under Israeli rule and occupation.
Read more...Pbk • eBook • 320pp
Sarajevo Firewood explores in fictional form the recent histories of two entwined countries, Algeria and Bosnia and Herzegovina, both suffering traumatic and devastating civil wars in the 1990s. A lasting memorial to the thousands of dead and ‘disappeared’ of both countries and those who were forced to flee.
Read more...Pbk • Hbk • eBook • 256pp
Living in London, Nafie and his young wife Maliha become good friends with fellow exile Doctor Nadim, with unforeseen consequences for them all. A powerful narrative of psychological suffering and cultural displacement that upsets the very ordinary aspirations for life and love.
Read more...Pbk • Hbk • eBook • 152pp
This work, first published in Arabic in 1969 to great acclaim, and now for the first time in English translation, was written in defiance of the “sanctity of genre” and to raise the question of freedom of expression in writing.
Read more...Paperback • ebook • 126pp
Ahmed Morsi’s first volume in English translation captures the modernity and empathy at the heart of all his works, his surrealistic humour, and his visions of the dramas of ordinary life.
Read more...Paperback • eBook • 184pp
"A flavourful and entertaining memoir of his friendship with a shape-shifting, rule-breaking character" – Boyd Tonkin
Read more...Paperback • eBook • 160pp
Taleb Alrefai turns a spotlight on Kuwait’s pearl-fishing history in this enthralling fictional re-telling of the day the country’s famous shipmaster Captain Al-Najdi was lost at sea.
Read more...Paperback • eBook • 92pp
Both formats available now
"This intense, glacial fantasy is the work of a literary master. At a subliminal level, it can be read as the intellectual’s despairing and suicidal attack on inhuman political power" – James Kirkup
Read more...Paperback • 120pp • £9.99
Illustrated with 20 paintings by Reem Yassouf
First collection in English translation for Syrian poet Nouri Al-Jarrah. Translated from the Arabic by Camilo Gómez-Rivas and Allison Blecker.
Paperback • 282pp • £9.99
A fully revised third edition in translation of this best-selling ‘gem of autobiographical writing’ in the Arab world, by an author who has been called ‘a relentless raconteur’, ‘a modern Odysseus’, ‘the Iraqi Don Quixote’.
Paperback • 154pp • £7.99 • $15
These Selected Poems, translated from the Arabic by Sargon Boulus himself before his untimely passing, are a commemoration and celebration of him and his influential work. Plus tributes to him and a photographic memorial after he tragically passed away while the book was in progress
186pp • £7.95 • $15
Selected Poems, translated from the Arabic by Khaled Mattawa
Shepherd of Solitude is the first English collection for Jordanian poet Amjad Nasser, translated and introduced by the foremost translator of contemporary Arabic poetry, with the poems selected by poet and translator from the poet's Arabic volumes of 1979 to 2004.
180pp • £7.99 • €12 • $15
Selected Poems
First English-language collection for Ramsey Nasr, then Poet Laureate of the Netherlands.
Translated from the Dutch by David Colmer. Introduction by Victor Schiferli and Foreword by Ruth Padel
“With this collection Anglophone readers are introduced to a poet of global scope" – Marilyn Hacker
Paperback • 124 pages • £7.99
The brilliantly observed clutter and comedy of everyday lives pushed up against an iron occupation and fighting for survival . . .
• Click here for the title story Mordechai's Moustache and his Wife's Cats
Paperback • 120 pages • £7.99 • $15
From Palestine, Lebanon, Egypt and Syria. George, Kamal, Mayy, Abdullah, Nadia, William, all have to begin their lives again, learn how to deal with their memories, with their pasts . . .
Paperback • 222pp • £8.99 • $15
Short Stories from North Africa: Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Sudan and Tunisia
Includes new works by authors well-known in the West – Tayeb Salih from Sudan, Mohamed Choukri from Morocco
Read more...Paperback • 288 pages • £9.99 • $15
Enthralling and timely saga, set in a small Lebanese village, of a young family's attempt to thwart the onset of civil war
Read more...Paperback • 128pp • £3.95
Poems and short stories by four young Arab authors celebrating their tour of the UK August 2006 with Banipal Live, a partnership of Banipal magazine with the British Council and The Reading Agency.
Things I Left Behind
by Shada Mustafa
The Tent Generations, Palestinian Poems
by Mohammed Sawaie
Sarajevo Firewood
by Saïd Khatibi
The Madness of Despair
by Ghalya F T Al Said
Fadhil Al-Azzawi's Beautiful Creatures
by Fadhil al-Azzawi
Poems of Alexandria and New York
by Ahmed Morsi
Mansi A Rare Man in His Own Way
by Tayeb Salih
The Mariner
by Taleb Alrefai
Goat Mountain
by Habib Selmi
A Boat to Lesbos
by Nouri Al-Jarrah
An Iraqi In Paris
by Samuel Shimon
Knife Sharpener
by Sargon Boulus
Shepherd of Solitude
by Amjad Nasser
Heavenly Life
by Ramsey Nasr
Mordechai's Moustache and his Wife's Cats, and other stories
by Mahmoud Shukair
A Retired Gentleman, and other stories
by Issa J Boullata
Sardines and Oranges
by Tayeb Salih and 20 other North African authors
The Myrtle Tree
by Jad El Hage
Unbuttoning the Violin
by Mansoura Ez-Eldin, Joumana Haddad, Ala Hlehel, Abed Ismael