Receive Our Newsletter
For news of readings, events and new titles.
Selections
Nazih Abu Afach
Four Poems
Four Poems
CAIN’S GRANDSONS
When you say “I love you”
I put my hand on my heart.
When you say “brother”
I smell in your compassionate call
the softness of poison in the mouth,
the bite of a bullet in the back.
When you stretch your arms
to embrace me
I run from you,
and take refuge with my first killers
(Cain and his grandsons)
whose knives will pierce your neck
before you turn the next corner.
FOR HOW LONG?
The earth is overburdened
with a terrible legacy
of blood
sighs
doctrines
warriors
and prayers by those
who have a monopoly on God and truth …
The earth …
How long has it endured?
How long will it endure?
TOURISTS
Like one envying the dead for their clothes,
they flirt with the sun of the East
while we are smothered by its darkness.
A PORTRAIT
I dream of the past
and deliberately forget the future,
spending what is left of my life
inside hell’s ornate walls.
I call it the house of the beast,
the beast calls it the home of man.
This is me.
From the author’s collection [The Memory of The Elements], 2005
The Cinderellas of Muscat by Huda Hamed (Banipal Books, 2025)
The Tent Generations
Things I Left Behind by Shada Mustafa, translated by Nancy Roberts
Shadow of the Sun by Taleb Alrefai
Birds of Nabaa, A Mauritanian Tale by Abdallah Uld Mohamadi Bah
The Stone Serpent, Barates of Palmyra’s Elegy for Regina his Beloved by Nouri Al-Jarrah
Mansi A Rare Man in His Own Way by Tayeb Saleh (Banipal Books, 2020)
Tayeb Salih
Goat Mountain by Habib Selmi
Habib Selmi, author of Goat Mountain and 3 times shortlisted for the IPAF
The Mariner by Taleb Alrefai (Banipal Books, 2020)
Taleb Alrefai, author of Shadow of the Sun and The Mariner
Fadhil Al-Azzawi's Beautiful Creatures by Fadhil al-Azzawi (Banipal Books, 2021)
Fadhil al-Azzawi
Poems of Alexandria and New York by Ahmed Morsi (Banipal Books, 2021)
Saïd Khatibi
Amjad Nasser (1955–2019)
Digital Banipal the full archive
Ahmed Morsi, author of Poems of Alexandria and New York
Sarajevo Firewood
The Madness of Despair
LATEST NEWS
.png)
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
Link to poems by Mosab Abu Toha, published in Banipal 71 (Summer 2021), available to read online
* * *
Link to poem by Liana Badr published in Banipal 74, now available as an online selection
* * *
* * *
GRIFFIN PRIZE SHORTLIST 2023
* * *
* * *
* * *
Banipal's first audiobook* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
Banipal Book Club
* * *
