Almost Every Day—from the novel by Mohammed Abdelnabi
An exclusive excerpt from Mohammed Abdelnabi's latest novel "Almost Every Day," translated from the Arabic by Nada Faris.
Mohammed Abdelnabi
Mohammed Abdelnabi is an Egyptian writer born in Dakahlia Governorate in 1977. He obtained a BA in languages and translation from the English and Simultaneous Translation Department of Al-Azhar University in 2002 and currently works as a freelance translator. He has published several novels and short story collections, including After the Prince Went to Hunt (Merit, 2008), The Return of the Sheikh (Rowafid, 2011), In the Spider’s Room (Hoopoe, 2018), Once Upon a Time (Al-Ain, 2018), and Almost Every Day (Al-Mahrousa, 2023). In addition to his work, Abdelnabi runs a creative writing workshop in Egypt that has resulted in two books about his experience: In the Writing Room (Al-Karama, 2021) and The Story and What Is In It (Al-Karama, 2023). His novel The Return of the Sheikh was longlisted for the 2013 International Prize for Arabic Fiction and his story collection, As the Flood Passes the Sleeping Village won the best short story collection at the 2015 Cairo Book Fair. In 2010, his short story collection The Ghost of Anton Chekhov won the Sawiris Literature Prize. He has translated many novels and nonfiction books from English to Arabic, including In the Country of Men, by Hisham Matar (Cairo: Dar el-Shorouk, 2016) and Jonathan Livingston Seagull, by Richard Bach (Cairo: Al-Karama, 2016).
Nada Faris is a writer and literary translator. In 2018, she received an Arab Woman Award from Harper’s Bazaar Arabia for her impact on creatives in Kuwait. She is an Honorary Fellow in Writing at Iowa University’s International Writing Program (IWP) Fall 2013; and an alumna of the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) 2018: Empowering Youth through the Performing Arts. Faris holds an MFA in Creative Writing (Poetry & Literary Translation) from Columbia University. She is the author of multiple books in different genres. Her shorter works have appeared in: The Norton Anthology for Hint Fiction, Gulf Coast Journal, Indianapolis Review, Nimrod, Tribes, One Jacar, The American Journal of Poetry, and more. Lost in Mecca by Bothayna Al-Essa (DarArab, 2024) is Faris’ first literary translation.