Banipal (UK) Magazine of Modern Arab Literature - Selections

Selections of poems and fiction, sampling the richness and variety of the hundreds of authors in the issues. Plus a chance to hear and see a few of the authors in performance.

Selected Issue: Banipal 61, A Journey in Iraqi Fiction

FICTION

Abdullah Sakhi

A chapter from the novel Duroob al-Fuqdan (Paths of Loss)

Abdullah Sakhi’s novel Duroob al-Fuqdan (Paths of Loss) has the highest gross sales of all Iraqi novels, with a reprint just a few months after first publication. Banipal 61 presents two chapters from the novel.

FICTION

Dhia Jubaili

Six ways of crossing borders illegally

This novel by Iraqi writer Dhia Jubaili is an allegorical reading of the Sunni-Shi’i sectarian conflict following the Anglo-American occupation of Iraq. In a fantastical re-enactment of Italo Calvino’s The Cloven Viscount, an Iraqi man falls into the hands of two terrorists, a Chechen and an Afghani, on the Iraq-Syria border.