#radwa ashour

[whilereadingandwalking]

Months before I left for my trip to Granada, Spain, I was hit with a stroke of extraordinary luck: Hoopoe Press asked if I'd like to get a review copy of the new, full translation of Radwa Ashour's Granada trilogy, a multigenerational epic of Arabic literature describing the fall of Muslim rule in medieval Spain and the impact it had on real families in the city of Granada and throughout Andalusia. Um...YES I wanted one! This is the first time the entire trilogy has been available in English translation, thanks to translator Kay Heikkinen; the entire series comes in an impressively compact package, complete with a foreword by Marina Warner.

I'm only one novel in, and am just starting sequel Marayama now, but trust me: the first book, at the very least, is an absolute must-read. For anyone interested in Muslim life in Spain, or anyone visiting Granada, sure, because it's astounding historical fiction, but truly for anyone who loves a good multigenerational novel (and I know there are a bunch of you following me). Populated by bold, subversive female protagonists and a poetic narrative about the pain and suffering of seeing your culture be suppressed and erased, this first novel was simply excellent (and I have two books to go!).

I'll come back and hype this one up again when I'm done with the trilogy, but I wanted to let you know about it now, because it comes out November 5...And because I mentioned it in every other sentence when my family and I were touring the city of Granada and its oldest neighborhoods. I felt like I knew that much more about the Albaycín thanks to Ashour's fantastic writing and its excellent translation. Go put it on hold!

[arablit]

Forthcoming Nov 2024: Classics, New and Old

In November 2024, two deceased giants of Arabic literature — Elias Khoury and Radwa Ashour — have new English translations of their work. In Ashour’s case, her classic Granada is finally getting a complete translation, rather than only the first book in the trilogy; in Khoury’s, his Children of the Ghetto is a posthumous translation of a posthumous novel, as translator Humphrey Davies has also…

[roughghosts]

Suspended between two lives: Specters by Radwa Ashour

To the young, because they are young, everything looks bigger, taking on proportions relative to their age and to the space their bodies occupy, amidst other bodies heavier, taller, and broader than theirs. The tallest person is the oldest, and the uncle or aunt who has reached the age of thirty is of such an advanced age that it is difficult to grasp the concept of this “thirty,” based on the…

[battyaboutbooksreviews]

Read Palestine Week

🇵🇸 Good morning, my beautiful bookish bats. Can I start by saying a huge THANK YOU for sharing my Queer Palestinian Book post? Seriously, thank you so much. Let's keep that momentum by observing Read Palestine Week (Nov 29 - Dec 5). I've compiled a list of books to help you, along with a list of upcoming events and resources you can use this week and beyond.

🇵🇸 A collective of over 350 global publishers and individuals issued a public statement expressing solidarity with the Palestinian people. Publishers for Palestine have organized an international #ReadPalestine week, starting today (International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People).

🇵🇸 These publishers have made many resources and e-books available for free (with more to come). A few include award-winning fiction and poetry by Palestinian and Palestinian diaspora authors. You'll also find non-fiction books about Palestinian history, politics, arts, culture, and “books about organizing, resistance, and solidarity for a Free Palestine.” You can visit publishersforpalestine.org to download some of the books they have available.

POETRY 🌙 Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear by Mosab Abu Toha 🌙 Affiliation by Mira Mattar 🌙 Enemy of the Sun by Samih al-Qasim 🌙 I Saw Ramallah by Mourid Barghouti 🌙 A Mountainous Journey by Fadwa Tuqan 🌙 So What by Taha Muhammad Ali 🌙 The Butterfly’s Burden by Mahmoud Darwish 🌙 To All the Yellow Flowers by Raya Tuffaha

FICTION 🌙 Gate of the Sun by Elias Khoury 🌙 Speak, Bird, Speak Again: Palestinian Arab Folktales 🌙 Men in the Sun by Ghassan Kanafani 🌙 Morning in Jenin by Susan Abulhawa 🌙 Gaze Writes Back by Young Writers in Gaze 🌙 Palestine +100:Stories from a Century after the Nakba 🌙 Wild Thorns by Sahar Khalifeh 🌙 Out of Time by Samira Azzam

🌙 The Skin and Its Girl by Sarah Cypher 🌙 You Exist Too Much by Zaina Arafat 🌙 A Woman is No Man by Etaf Rum 🌙 Salt Houses by Hala Alyan 🌙 A Map of Home by Randa Jarrar 🌙 Against the Loveless World by Susan Abulhawa 🌙 Minor Detail by Adania Shibli 🌙 The Woman From Tantoura by Radwa Ashour

NON-FICTION 🌙 Blood Brothers by Elias Chacour 🌙 Strangers in the House: Coming of Age in Occupied Palestine by Raja Shehadeh 🌙 Palestinian Art, 1850–2005 by Kamal Boullata 🌙 Palestine by Joe Sacco 🌙 The Hour of Sunlight: One Palestinian’s Journey from Prisoner to Peacemaker by Sami Al Jundi & Jen Marlowe 🌙 Palestine: A Four Thousand Year History by Nur Masalha 🌙 Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine by Noura Erakat 🌙 The Words of My Father: Love and Pain in Palestine by Yousef Khalil Bashir

🌙 Traditional Palestinian Costume: Origins and Evolution by Hanan Karaman Munayyer 🌙 Mountain against the Sea: Essays on Palestinian Society and Culture by Salim Tamari 🌙 This Is Not a Border: Reportage and Reflection from the Palestine Festival of Literature 🌙 We Could Have Been Friends, My Father and I: A Palestinian Memoir, by Raja Shehadeh 🌙 Les échos de la mémoire. Une enfance palestinienne à Jérusalem, by Issa J. Boullata 🌙 A Party For Thaera: Palestinian Women Write Life In Prison 🌙 Light in Gaza: Writings Born of Fire, 🌙 Voices of the Nakba: A Living History of Palestine

[brandonshimoda]

THE BOOKS I READ IN 2023

*I read it before

**I read it more than once this year

Aaron Caycedo-Kimura, Common Grace

Adania Shibli, Minor Detail, translated from the Arabic by Elisabeth Jaquette

Ahmad Almallah, Bitter English

Alison Lubar, It Skips a Generation

Atef Abu Saif, The Drone Eats With Me: A Gaza Diary

Brynn Saito, Under a Future Sky

Camonghne Felix, Dyscalculia: A Love Story of Epic Miscalculation

*Carolina Ebeid, You Ask Me to Talk About the Interior

Chanté L. Reid, Thot

*Christina Sharpe, Ordinary Notes

Christine Shan Shan Hou & Vi Khi Nao, Evolution of the Bullet

Christopher Okigbo, Labyrinths (with Paths of Thunder)

Cristina Rivera Garza, Liliana’s Invincible Summer

Dionne Brand, Chronicles of the Hostile Sun

*Dionne Brand, No Language is Neutral

Dionne Brand, Primitive Offensive

Édouard Louis, Who Killed My Father, translated from the French by Lorin Stein

**Emily Lee Luan, 回 / Return

Erin Marie Lynch, Removal Acts

Fady Joudah, Footnotes in the Order of Disappearance

Farid Tali, Prosopopoeia, translated from the French by Aditi Machado

Gabriel Palacios, A Ten Peso Burial For Which Truth Is Sign (coming out 2024)

Ghayath Almadhoun, Adrenalin, translated from the Arabic by Catherine Cobham

Hauntie, To Whitey & The Cracker Jack

Hervé Guibert, To the friend who did not save my life, translated from the French by Linda Coverdale

Hiromi Ito, Tree Spirits Grass Spirits, translated from the Japanese by Jon L. Pitt

*James Baldwin, No Name in the Street

*James Baldwin, Nobody Knows My Name

*James Baldwin, The Devil Finds Work

James Fujinami Moore, Indecent Hours

Jami Nakamura Lin, The Night Parade

Jawdat Fakhreddine, Lighthouse for the Drowning, translated from the Arabic by Huda Fakhreddine and Jayson Iwen

Jed Munson, Commentary on the Birds

Jennifer Hayashida, A Machine Wrote This Song

Jenny Odell, Inhabiting The Negative Space

Jenny Xie, The Rupture Tense

*Joy Kogawa, A Choice of Dreams

Joy Kogawa, A Garden of Anchors: Selected Poems

**Joy Kogawa, From the Lost and Found Department: New and Selected Poems

Joy Kogawa, Gently to Nagasaki

*Joy Kogawa, Jericho Road

*Joy Kogawa, Obasan

Joy Kogawa, The Rain Ascends

Joy Kogawa, The Splintered Moon

*Joy Kogawa, Woman in the Woods

Juan Felipe Herrera, Akrílica, eds. Farid Matuk, Carmen Giménez, Anthony Cody

Kamo-no-Chomei, Hojoki: Visions of a Torn World, translated from the Japanese by Yasuhiko Moriguchi and David Jenkins

Keorapetse Kgositsile, Collected Poems, 1969-2018

*Kiku Hughes, Displacement

Kōno Taeko, Toddler-Hunting, translated from the Japanese by Lucy North

Leila Khaled, My People Shall Live: Autobiography of a Revolutionary, as told to George Hajjar

Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, Kaan and Her Sisters

**Lindsey Webb, Plat (coming out in 2024)

Lisa Hsiao Chen, Activities of Daily Living

Liyana Badr, A Balcony over the Fakihani, translated from the Arabic by Peter Clark with Christopher Tingley

Lucille Clifton, An Ordinary Woman

*Lucille Clifton, Blessing the Boats

Lucille Clifton, Good News About the Earth

Lucille Clifton, Good Times

Lucille Clifton, Two-Headed Woman

Mahmoud Darwish, The Butterfly’s Burden, translated from the Arabic by Fady Joudah

Mahmoud Darwish, If I Were Another, translated from the Arabic by Fady Joudah

Mahmoud Darwish, Palestine as Metaphor, translated from the Arabic by Amira El-Zein and Carolyn Forché

Maya Abu Al-Hayyat, You Can Be The Last Leaf, translated from the Arabic by Fady Joudah

Maya Marshall, All the Blood Involved in Love

Michael Prior, Model Disciple

*Mitsuye Yamada, Camp Notes and Other Poems

Mitsuye Yamada, Full Circle: New and Selected Poems

Mohammed El-Kurd, RIFQA

**Mosab Abu Toha, Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear

Mourid Barghouti, I Saw Ramallah, translated from the Arabic by Ahdaf Soueif

Mourid Barghouti, I Was Born There, I Was Born Here, translated from the Arabic by Humphrey Davies

Mourid Barghouti, Midnight, translated from the Arabic by Radwa Ashour

Na Mira, The Book of Na

Najwan Darwish, Nothing More to Lose, translated from the Arabic by Kareem James Abu-Zeid

Natsume Sōseki, Kokoro, translated from the Japanese by Edwin McClellan

Nona Fernández, Voyager: Constellations of Memory, translated from the Spanish by Natasha Wimmer

Noor Hindi, DEAR GOD. DEAR BONES. DEAR YELLOW.

Osamu Dazai, No Longer Human, translated from the Japanese by Donald Keene

Osamu Dazai, The Flowers of Buffoonery, translated from the Japanese by Sam Bett

The Palestinian Wedding: A Bilingual Anthology of Contemporary Palestinian Resistance Poetry, edited and translated from the Arabic by A.M. Elmessiri

R.F. Kuang, Yellowface

Ryunosuke Akutagawa, Kappa, translated from Japanese by Lisa Hofmann-Kuroda and Allison Markin Powell

Salim Barakat, Come, Take a Gentle Stab: Selected Poems, translated from the Arabic by Huda J. Fakhreddine and Jayson Iwen

Samih Al-Qasim, All Faces But Mine, translated from the Arabic by Abdulwahid Lu’lu’a

Samih al-Qasim, Sadder Than Water: New & Selected Poems, translated from the Arabic by Nazih Kassis

*Saretta Morgan, Alt-Nature (coming out in 2024)

Satsuki Ina, The Poet and the Silk Girl (coming out in 2024)

Sawako Ariyoshi, The Twilight Years, translated from the Japanese by Mildred Tahara

Shailja Patel, Migritude

Sham-e-Ali Nayeem, City of Pearls

Sharon Yamato, Moving Walls

Shivanee Ramlochan, Everyone Knows I Am a Haunting

**shō yamagushiku, shima (coming out in 2014)

Shuri Kido, Names and Rivers, translated from the Japanese by Tomoyuki Endo and Forrest Gander

*Solmaz Sharif, Customs

Stella Corso, Green Knife

*Taha Muhammad Ali, Never Mind: Twenty Poems and a Story, translated from the Arabic by Peter Cole, Yahya Hijazi, Gabriel Levin

Terry Watada, The Game of 100 Ghosts (Hyaku Monogatari Kwaidan-kai)

Victoria Chang, Obit

*Wong May, Superstitions

THE BOOKS I'M CURRENTLY READING, THAT I HAVEN'T FINISHED YET

Chi Rainer Bornfree and Ragini Tharoor Srinivasan, The Portal (not yet published)

Elaine Castillo, How to Read Now

Eqbal Ahmad, The Selected Writings

Essays, ed. Dorothea Lasky

Fadwa Tuqan, A Mountainous Journey: A Poet's Autobiography, translated from the Arabic by Olive Kenny

James Welch, Winter in the Blood

Lan P. Duong, Nothing Follows

Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, Touching the Art

Preti Taneja, Aftermath

Wanda Coleman, Wicked Enchantment

[augustthetimeofsadness]

غريبٌ أنْ أبقى مُحتفظةً بنفسِ النظرةِ إلى شخصٍ ما طوال ثلاثين عامًا..أنْ يمضيَ الزَّمنُ، وتمرَّ السنوات وتتبدَّل المشاهد، وتبقى صورتُهُ كما قرَّتْ في نفسي في لقاءاتِنا الأولى .

- Radwa Ashour said about:

Mourid Barghouti .

[witchmd13]

I'm reading mureed barghouti memoir and then he casually mentions edward said visiting them at home in passing like when you do when you say oh yeah my best friend had dinner with us last night meanwhile I'm here trying to keep reading like my brain hasn't just exploded like?? edward said?? orientalism edward said?? visiting mureed and radwa ashour's house like they're best friends?? having dinner and talking about random stuff?? my head is still spinning??

[zaineladabelaraby]

https://zaineladabelaraby.blogspot.com/p/26-1946-30-2014-68.html

Radwa Ashour

[regulusrules]

It's La Reconquista all over again but in modern terminologies.

No matter how Western ideologies will try as much as they can to eradicate the influence of Muslim pioneers and revert the narrative to how Muslims are backward, there will always remain the cultural evidences of how they foregrounded the essence of so many sciences and arts.

Read about: Muslims' rule over Al-Andalus, Convivencia, the Islamic Golden Age, Radwa Ashour's historical trilogy Granada, and the post-colonial works of Edward Said chiefly Orientalism.

So, Boris Johnson wrote an essay in which he talked about the Sistine Chapel and then said : “There is nothing like it in Muslim art of that or any age, not just because it is beyond the technical accomplishment of Islamic art, but because it is so theologically offensive to Islam.”

BITCH

NOT TO MENTION the fact that the prohibition against direct images in Islam was actually the reason for the development of the incredible advances in higher mathematics of the Islamic Golden Age because they were required to create these structures. The Islamic World basically took the ban on images as a “hold my beer” thing and created an entire artistic culture based on mathematics and architecture where art and science fed into and glorified each other, 700 years before the Italian Renaissance.

In conclusion

[nievesmorena]

👩‍🎨🎨 MALAK MATTAR, artista palestina.

Malak Mattar creció pintando y dibujando. Así fue como enfrentó el trastorno de estrés postraumático y procesó las atrocidades que presenciaba regularmente cerca de su hogar en Gaza.

En 2014, a los 14 años, Mattar comenzó a compartir imágenes de sus obras de arte en línea. Su obra, basada en el realismo y con elementos fantásticos, a menudo pone en primer plano a mujeres en busca de la historicidad, lo que refleja la propia biografía de Mattar a través del poder de la creación de imágenes y los símbolos de transformación.

El 30 de junio se inauguró la exposición individual de pinturas nuevas y tempranas de Mattar, que se prolongó durante seis meses en el Garden Court Chambers de Londres, la primera exposición de un artista palestino en la institución.

"Tú y yo" fue creada para conmemorar la muerte del poeta palestino Mourid Barghouti. En ella, el poeta abraza a su esposa, Radwa Ashour, una novelista egipcia que murió en 2014. Sus ricas ropas son una sinfonía de flores y oro inspirada en Gustav Klimt. La mujer bautizó la pintura con el nombre de un poema que Barghouti dedicó a su esposa.

#Porsimelees❤

[brightside00]

“I pledged to myself that I would change some of my character, to be more silent, for example, not to always ask questions, or to make excuses for my absence, to expand isolation more, to reduce relationships and affectation, to always appear happy, no matter how much fire burned in my chest...” .

- Radwa Ashour

[arablit]

9 Short Stories by Egyptian Women, in Translation

9 Short Stories by Egyptian Women, in Translation

In 1993, University of Texas Press brought out a collection of short stories by Egyptian women, in translation, edited by Marilyn Booth, called My Grandmother’s Cactus: In her introduction, Booth notes that Egyptian women writers have been contributing to the short-story genre since the 1890s; her collection presents work by eight writers whose work began to emerge in the late 1970s and early…

[battyaboutbooksreviews]

✨ National Arab American Heritage Month (NAAHM) is celebrated in April. The first Arab American Heritage Day was celebrated on October 25, 1992. NAAHM celebrates the heritage and culture of Arab Americans and Arabic-speaking Americans. It also recognizes the contributions of Arab Americans to the United States, including:

🌙 The history of Arab migration to America 🌙 The diversity within the Arab American community 🌙 Important customs and traditions 🌙 The fight for civil rights and social justice

✨ NAAHM also serves as a time to: 🌙 Combat Anti-Arab bigotry 🌙 Challenge stereotypes and prejudices

✨ In 2023, the president declared April National Arab American Heritage Month. However, I felt it necessary to recognize Arab American Heritage Day this year, too. I'm Palestinian 🇵🇸, but growing up, I never saw that word printed on a page, never saw it recognized as a nationality in novels or newspapers. We're here. We exist. We will not be erased, ignored, or silenced.

✨ In celebration of these voices, here are a few books by Arab and 🇵🇸Palestinian authors to consider adding to your TBR.

🌙 A Woman is No Man by Etaf Rum 🌙 Against the Loveless World by Susan Abulhawa 🌙 The Woman From Tantoura by Radwa Ashour 🌙 You Exist Too Much by Zaina Arafat 🌙 Crescent by Diana Abu Jaber 🌙 Salt Houses by Hala Alyan 🌙 Minor Detail by Adania Shibli 🌙 As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow by Zoulfa Katouh 🌙 Woman at Point Zero by Nawal El Saadawi 🌙 Silence is a Sense by Layla AlAmmar 🌙 The Beauty of Your Face by Sahar Mustafah 🌙 Exhausted on the Cross by Najwan Darwish 🌙 Palestine Is Throwing a Party and the Whole World Is Invited by Kareem Rabie 🌙 My First and Only Love by Sahar Khalifeh 🌙 Rifqa by Mohammed El-Kurd 🌙 Among the Almond Trees by Hussein Barghouthi 🌙 Palestine: A Socialist Introduction (edited) by Sumaya Awad and Brian Bean 🌙 The Book of Ramallah (edited) by Maya Abu Al-Hayat 🌙 Stories Under Occupation: And Other Plays from Palestine (edited) by Samer al-Saber and Gary M. English 🌙 Ever Since I Did Not Die by Ramy al-Asheq 🌙 Power Born of Dreams: My Story is Palestine by Mohammad Sabaaneh 🌙 Post-Millennial Palestine: Literature, Memory, Resistance (edited) by Ahmad Qabaha and Rachel Gregory Fox 🌙 The Dance of the Deep-Blue Scorpion by Akram Musallam 🌙 Wondrous Journeys in Strange Lands by Sonia Nimr 🌙 The Gaza Kitchen: A Palestinian Culinary Journey by Laila El-Haddad and Maggie Schmitt 🌙 Evil Eye by Etaf Rum 🌙 A Child in Palestine by Naji al-Ali 🌙 Murals by Mahmoud Darwish 🌙 Farah Rocks by Susan Muaddi Darraj 🌙 Halal Hot Dogs by Suzannah Aziz, illustrated by Parwinder Singh 🌙 Baba, What Does My Name Mean? A Journey to Palestine by Rifk Ebeid, illustrated by Lamaa Jawhari 🌙 The Olive Tree Said to Me by N. Salem 🌙 Does My Head Look Big In This? by Randa Abdel-Fattah 🌙 Don't Read The Comments by Eric Smith 🌙 Jasmine Falling by Shereen Malherbe 🌙 Mornings in Jenin by Susan Abulhawa 🌙 The Lady of Tel Aviv by Raba’i al-Madhoun 🌙 Looking for Palestine: Growing Up Confused in an Arab-American Family by Najla Said

[97-alnoor]

تساؤل لرضوى عاشور: "لماذا بقى الصوتُ حاضرًا إلى هذا الحد؟ لماذا تصُون الذاكرة أشياء دُون أشياء؟"

[artopologia]

«غريب أن أبقى محتفظة بنفس النظرة إلى شخص ما طوال ثلاثين عامًا، أن يمضي الزمن وتمر السنوات وتتبدل المشاهد وتبقى صورته كما قرّت في نفسي في لقاءاتنا الأولى.»

— رضوى عاشور عن مريد البرغوثي

[waywardpandagiantfire]

Midnight and Other Poems, Mourid Barghouti