“The General Secretariat of Speed Bumps”—an Excerpt
Wasta and nepotism are at the heart of this short story by Yemen’s most prolific writer, theatre critic, and journalist.
Hayel al-Mathabi
Hayel al-Mathabi is a prolific writer, researcher, critic, playwright, translator, and editor. The director of the Research and Studies Department at the Yemeni Ministry of Culture, he is the author of 20 books, including Popular Spectacle: Cultural Resistance and the Making of Awareness in the Age of Colonialism (Arab Theatre Authority Publications, 2023). He has done the first translation Arabic translation of When a Robot Writes a Play, originally in Czech by ChatGPT.
Christiaan James is an American diplomat and literary translator. He holds a degree in Middle Eastern Studies from Harvard University and has lived and worked throughout the Middle East and North Africa, including Yemen, Tunisia, and Egypt. His first translation of Yemeni author Badr Ahmad’s Five Days Untold (Reading, UK: DarArab, 2024) was longlisted for the Republic of Consciousness prize in 2022.