Rencontre Littéraires et Poétiques : Coline Houssais, Karim Kattan et Rachida Belkacem
2024-09-21 15:00 - 2024-09-22 15:00 (Europe/Helsinki) | Domaine D’O, 178, rue de la Carriérasse, Montpellier, 34090, France
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The Markaz Review fait sa rentrée littéraire au Festival Arabesques. Venez découvrir nos deux évènements littéraires et poétiques au Domaine D’O à Montpellier.

Coline Houssais présentera son livre Paris en lettres arabes (Actes Sud 2024), qui jette des ponts entre la culture parisienne et divers écrivains arabes au fil du temps. Le samedi 21 septembre à 15h au Domaine d’O, entrée gratuite.

Coline Houssais est spécialiste des cultures du monde arabe. Formée à l’Institut d’études arabes de Damas et au campus Moyen-Orient-Méditerranée de Sciences Po, où elle enseigne aujourd’hui, elle est également traductrice, journaliste et chercheuse indépendante. La conversation sera animée par Sarah Naili de The Markaz Review.

L’écrivain palestinien Karim Kattan et la poétesse franco-marocaine Rachida Belkacem seront réunis pour une conversation littéraire le dimanche 22 septembre 2024 à 15h au Domaine d’O, entrée gratuite.

Karim Kattan présentera son nouveau roman paru aux éditions Elyzad, L’Éden à l’aube, autour de l’histoire d’amour d’Isaac et Gabriel, à Jérusalem, où il est question de djinns et de checkpoints, au cœur de la Palestine.
Karim Kattan est un écrivain palestinien de Bethléem. Il est docteur en littérature comparée. Il écrit en anglais et en français. Ses textes — fictions, essais, et poèmes — sont à la convergence des littératures de l’imaginaire et des littératures expérimentales.
Rachida Belkacem présentera son dernier recueil de poésie, L’Odyssée des possibles.
Ancienne chroniqueuse radio et membre de jurys de prix littéraires, Rachida Belkacem est très impliquée dans la vie culturelle française et marocaine. En 2023, elle publie un recueil de poésie intitulé Phronésis (Mindset Éditions), un ouvrage en prose sur la lumière, la liberté et l’optimisme. Dans l’ouvrage collectif Maroc de quoi avons-nous peur, sorti en 2020, elle analyse la condition des femmes marocaines : « L’évolution de la condition féminine, pour qu’elle s’inscrive dans les mœurs et les mentalités, ne peut être que le fruit d’une action inclusive impliquant les hommes. »
La conversation sera animée par Jordan Elgrably, rédacteur en chef de The Markaz Review.
Pour en savoir plus : www.festivalarabesques.fr

GATEKEEPERS: Arab Writers, Editors & Publishers Confront Mainstream Opposition
2024-09-26 19:00 - 20:00 (Europe/Helsinki) | Zoom, United States
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The Markaz Review presents GATEKEEPERS: Arab Writers, Editors & Publishers Confront Mainstream Opposition, a roundtable with Palestinian authors/publishers/editors Michel Moushabeck and Hannah Moushabeck, and author/publisher/editor Ammiel Alcalay. Free speech and the freedom to publish inconvenient truths during the war on Gaza; what hoops and misconceptions do writers and publishers from the region face; and who gatekeepers in popular Western publishing are some of the topics for the panel, which will be moderated by TMR editors Jordan Elgrably & Malu Halasa.
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About the speakers:

Michel Moushabeck is the founder of the independently owned Interlink Books (1987), which has an active list of over 1,000 titles and has published more Arab authors than any other US publisher. He is also a writer, editor, and musician of Palestinian Arab descent. In April this year he received the Arab American of the Year Award from ACCESS in Detroit. Moushabeck lectures frequently on Arabic music and literature in translation. He plays music almost daily; is an avid hiker and mountain climber; and is a rather obsessive collector of jazz and world music, world percussion instruments, books, old maps, and contemporary art.

Hannah Moushabeck is a second-generation Palestinian American author and book worker who was raised in a family of publishers and booksellers and learned the power of literature at a young age. Hannah has worked in publishing for over a decade at companies such as Chronicle Books, The Quarto Group, and Simon & Schuster. She now runs Interlink Publishing, the only Palestinian-owned publisher in the United States, alongside her family. Her debut picture book Homeland: My Father Dreams of Palestine (Chronicle Books) won The New England Book Award and The Arab American Book Award. She lives in Amherst, Massachusetts on the homelands of the Pocumtuc and Nipmuc Nations.

Ammiel Alcalay is a poet, novelist, translator, essayist, critic, and scholar. Among his more than 20 books are After Jews and Arabs: Remaking Levantine Culture; Memories of Our Future; a little history; and the forthcoming Follow the Person: Archival Encounters, as well as CONTROLLED DEMOLITION: a work in four books. His co-translation of Palestinian poet Nasser Rabah’s Gaza: The Poem Said Its Piece, is due out in early 2025. He received an American Book Award in for his work as founder and General Editor of Lost & Found: The CUNY Poetics Document Initiative, and is a Distinguished Professor at Queens College and the CUNY Graduate Center.
Read his essay in our latest issue: My Life Among the Gatekeepers

Moderators

Jordan Elgrably is an American, French and Moroccan writer and translator whose stories and creative nonfiction have appeared in many anthologies and reviews, including Apulée, Salmagundi, and the Paris Review. Editor-in-chief and founder of The Markaz Review, he is the cofounder and former director of the Levantine Cultural Center/The Markaz in Los Angeles (2001–2020). He is the editor of Stories From the Center of the World: New Middle East Fiction (City Lights, 2024), and co-editor with Malu Halasa of Sumūd: a New Palestinian Reader (Seven Stories, 2024), Based in Montpellier, France and California, he tweets @JordanElgrably.
Read the editorial in our latest issue: Why GATEKEEPERS?
Malu Halasa, literary editor at The Markaz Review, is a London-based writer and editor. Her latest book as editor is Woman Life Freedom: Voices and Art From the Women’s Protests in Iran (Saqi 2023). Her six previous co-edited anthologies include Syria Speaks: Art and Culture from the Frontline, with coedited with Zaher Omareen & Nawara Mahfoud; The Secret Life of Syrian Lingerie: Intimacy and Design, with Rana Salam; and the short series: Transit Beirut: New Writing and Images, with Rosanne Khalaf, and Transit Tehran: Young Iran and Its Inspirations, with Maziar Bahari. She was managing editor of the Prince Claus Fund Library; a founding editor of Tank Magazine and Editor at Large for Portal 9. As a freelance journalist in London, she has covered wide-ranging subjects, from water as occupation in Israel/Palestine to Syrian comics during the present-day conflict. Her books, exhibitions and lectures chart a changing Middle East. Malu Halasa’s debut novel, Mother of All Pigs was reviewed by the New York Times as “a microcosmic portrait of … a patriarchal order in slow-motion decline.” She tweets at @halasamalu.
Read her essay in our latest issue: Featured Artists—”Barred From Home”
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TMR Book Club on Stories from the Center of the World readings & conversation
2024-09-29 19:00 - 20:00 (Europe/Helsinki) | Online
The Markaz Book Club invites you to readings and conversation about Stories from the Center of the World: New Middle East Fiction, edited by Jordan Elgrably and published in May by City Lights in San Francisco. Participating are editors Jordan Elgrably and Malu Halasa, along with writers Leila Aboulela, Farah Ahamed and Tariq Mehmood, who will read from their short stories, and discuss the state of short fiction out of the region TMR calls “the center of the world,” from Pakistan in the east to Morocco in the west.

Join us for this roundtable discussion on Sunday, September 29th at 1pm EST/ 6pm UK/ 7pm CET on Zoom.

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About the speakers:

Leila Aboulela is author of the story “Raise Your Head High.”Her most recent novel is River Spirit, published by Saqi Books. Her short story collection Elsewhere, Home, won the Saltire Fiction Book of the Year. Leila was born in Cairo, grew up in Khartoum and moved in her mid-twenties to Scotland where she now lives.

Farah Ahamed wrote the story “Anarkali, or Six Early Deaths in Lahore.” Her writing has been published in Ploughshares, White Review, LA Review of Books, Massachusetts Review, World Literature Today and The Markaz Review, among others. She lives in London.

Jordan Elgrably is the founder of The Markaz Review, author of the story “The Afghan and the Persian,” and editor of the anthology Stories from the Center of the World published by City Lights.

Malu Halasa is literary editor at The Markaz review and the author of the short story “A Dog in the Woods” in the same anthology.

Tariq Mehmood is the writer of the story “The Settlement,” as well as a novelist and filmmaker. Among his works are the novel Hand On The Sun, on the experience of racism by young migrants to the UK, and While There Is Light, a novel backdropped by the case of the BRADFORD 12. He lives and teaches in Beirut.

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This program is online and free to the public. Don’t miss what promises to be a rich conversation about short stories and TMR’s first fiction anthology. This roundtable is supported by grants from Hawthornden and Open Society Foundations.

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8e Biennale /si:n/ س Marseille
2024-10-20 08:00 - 19:00 (Europe/Helsinki) | Friche Belle de Mai, 41 Rue Jobin, Marseille, 13003, France
La biennale ouvrira le 20 octobre à Marseille à la Friche la Belle de Mai, avec 4 programmations d’art vidéo palestinien et international, une installation vidéo et une table ronde en partenariat avec The Markaz Review.
/si:n/, la lettre mathématique qui représente l’inconnu, le “x” en français et en anglais. Le spectateur la voit comme une lettre arabe mais phonétiquement, elle recouvre d’autres sens en langue anglaise : Scene (la scène) et Seen (to see : voir). L’intitulé /si:n/ exprime donc à lui seul la volonté du festival à être un espace de rencontres entre des cultures.
Inspiré.e.s * par les mouvements de solidarité tricontinentaux et anti-impérialistes des années 1960 à 80, à la croisée des pratiques militantes, artistiques et muséologiques qui ont crée une forme très particulière de musée de solidarité, sans murs, et le plus souvent, des musées en exil (en soutien aux peuple du Chili, du Nicaragua, de l’Afrique du Sud et bien sur de la Palestine), la Fondation A.M. Qattan et les Instants Vidéo ont ainsi lancé un appel à solidarité.
(*Voir l’exposition Passé Inquiet, curatée par Kristine Khouri & Rash Salti)

Table ronde EN QUÊTE D’IMAGE(S)
2024-10-20 17:30 - 19:00 (Europe/Helsinki) | Friche Belle de Mai, 41 Rue Jobin, Marseille, 13003, France
La 8e biennale d’art vidéo et de performance de Palestine /si:n/, co-fondée avec la Fondation A.M. Qattan, est contrainte à l’exil et est accueillie par le 37e Festival Les Instants Vidéo à Marseille, le 20 octobre 2024. Sous le titre Éloge de l’ombre haute, elle présentera durant toute la journée quatre programmations d’art vidéo d’une trentaine d’artistes, dont deux provenant de Palestine et deux internationales, en réponse à un appel à solidarité.
La table ronde EN QUÊTE D’IMAGE(S) se tiendra à 17h45, centrée sur la création artistique la discussion explorera le geste artistique et ce que signifie être artiste, en mettant l’accent sur le travail de plusieurs artistes palestinien.ne.s.
La journaliste Lyana Saleh animera la table ronde avec comme invité.e.s :

Mohamed Abusal : Artiste multidisciplinaire de Gaza, tout juste arrivé en France.
Marion Slitine : Anthropologue et chercheuse, spécialisée dans les interactions entre art, politique et espace public en Palestine.
Mahmoud Al-Haj : Artiste visuel et enseignant
Ashtar Muallem : Artiste interdisciplinaire
Sireen El Araj : Graphiste et chercheuse
Manel Mahamid: Artiste pluridisciplinaire, elle présentera sa vidéo From Akka to Gaza.
Charlotte Schwarzinger: Doctorante EHESS associée IFPO

La biennale continuera à voyager à travers le monde jusqu’en 2025, avec des étapes prévues en Éthiopie, aux États-Unis, en Belgique, en Jordanie et en Italie…
Retrouvez l’ensemble du programme de la journée ici: https://www.instantsvideo.com/blog/2024/09/8e-biennale-sin/
Une production des Instants Vidéo et de la Fondation A.AM Qattan
Les partenaires: REF, Ma’an For Gaza Artist, The Markaz Review

Roundtable Discussion - A Year of War: A Conversation on Our Shared Future
2024-10-24 19:00 (Europe/Helsinki) | Zoom, United States
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The Markaz Review invites you to attend A YEAR OF WAR, A CONVERSATION ON OUR SHARED FUTURE: a roundtable with Samina Najmi, Ziad Suidan and Lina Mounzer, with special guest Mona Seif.
Following the publication of our October 2024 issue, FROM HERE, ONE YEAR ON, we invite you to participate in a discussion about the year of war that began on October 7, 2023, which has since spread into Lebanon and Yemen, with further hostilities expected between Israel and Iran. Israel has refused ceasefire proposals from the UN and the White House, and continues to bomb Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Yemen and Syria. At the same time, many of the region’s inhabitants are living under despotic regimes, where freedom of expression is a daily danger, where dissidents are thrown into prison, women’s rights are curtailed, and religious minorities experience oppression or exile.
Samina Najmi, Ziad Suidan and Lina Mounzer will talk about their essays in FROM HERE, ONE YEAR ON, while Mona Seif will discuss discuss the continued imprisonment in Cairo of her brother Alaa Abd El-Fattah despite finishing his five year sentence (Alaa Abd El-Fattah is sharing the 2024 English PEN Pinter Prize with Arundati Roy, it was just announced.)
In this time of heightened tensions, genocide and war, with the entire Middle East region on edge, Nobel Prize Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi is calling for peace from her Evin Prison cell in Tehran, while millions march for peace in Palestine and Lebanon. Join us on October 24 for what is certain to be a passionate conversation, moderated by Lina Mounzer, senior editor at The Markaz Review.
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About the speakers:
Mona Seif grew up in a family of Egyptian activists. Her father Ahmed Seif was a human rights attorney and her brother Alaa Abd el-Fattah is a human rights activist and author. Mona is known for her participation in dissident movements during and after the 2011 Egyptian revolution, for her creative use of social media in campaigns, and for her work to end military trials for civilian protesters. She is a biology graduate student in the UK, investigating the BRCA1 breast cancer gene.

Samina Najmi teaches multiethnic US literatures at California State University, Fresno. Her creative nonfiction has appeared in World Literature Today, The Rumpus, The Massachusetts Review, and elsewhere. Her collection of essays, Sing Me a Circle, won the 2024 Aurora Polaris Award in creative nonfiction and will be published by Trio House Press in 2025. Samina grew up in Pakistan and England and raised her now-adult children in Fresno. Read her essay in our October issue: The Spark of Your Story, Ode to Aaron Bushnell.

Ziad Suidan is a lecturer at Haigazian University. He teaches English Literature, Cultural Studies and Communication Arts. He received his PhD in Comparative Literature in 2013 from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His dissertation focused on the poetry of Mahmoud Darwish and its poetics of exile.
Read his centerpiece essay in our latest issue: Witnessing Catastrophe: a Painter in Lebanon.

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TMR Book Club Discusses "The Jinn Daughter" with author Rania Hanna
2024-10-27 13:00 - 14:00 (America/Halifax) | Zoom, United States
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Join us on Sunday, October 27th at 1pm EST to discuss “The Jinn Daughter” with author Rania Hanna.
Rooted in Middle Eastern mythology, Rania Hanna deftly weaves subtle, yet breathtaking, magic through this vivid and compelling story that has at its heart the universal human desire to, somehow, outmaneuver death.
Published by AUC Press (Hoopoe), 274 pages.
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About the author:
Rania Hanna is a Syrian–American writer and researcher. She is a neuroscience doctoral student at George Mason University. “The Jinn Daughter” is her debut novel.
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Roundtable Discussion: Day of the Imprisoned Writer
2024-11-13 19:00 - 20:00 (Europe/Helsinki) | Online
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Writers in prison should have been a phrase entering extinction after the death of fascism at the end of World War II. Instead, there are more incarcerated writers in the world today than at perhaps anytime since WWII. From the famous cases of Alaa Abd El-Fattah in Egypt and Narges Mohammadi in Iran, to the little-known poets & writers in jail across the globe, PEN International marks November 15th each year as The Day of the Imprisoned Writer.
Join novelists Ahdaf Soueif and Maaza Mengiste with writers Mina Thabet from PEN International and Jordan Elgrably from The Markaz Review on Wednesday, November 13th at 1pm EST/ 7pm CET, as we discuss what can be done to put an end to the incarceration of writers, and the persecution of freedom of expression.
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About the speakers:
Ahdaf Soueif is the author of – among other titles – the bestselling The Map of Love (shortlisted for the Booker Prize and translated into more than 30 languages), the well-loved In the Eye of the Sun (1993) and Cairo: a City Transformed, her account of the Egyptian revolution of 2011. As a translator, her rendering of Mourid Barghouti’s I Saw Ramallah has become a classic. As a political and cultural commentator, her Mezzaterra (2004) has been influential and her articles for the Guardian are published in the European and American press. From 2011 to 2015 she wrote a weekly column for the Egyptian national daily, al-Shorouk. In 2007 Ms Soueif founded the Palestine Festival of Literature – PalFest, which takes place in the cities of occupied Palestine and Gaza. Ms Soueif has been awarded four honorary doctorates and was the first recipient of the Mahmoud Darwish Award (Palestine) in 2010. In 2019 she received the European Cultural Foundation’s Princess Margaret Award. Twitter: @asoueif • FaceBook: Ahdaf Soueif.
Maaza Mengiste is the author of The Shadow King, shortlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize, and a recipient of the American Academy of Arts & Letters Award in Literature. It was named a Best Book of 2019 by New York Times, NPR, Time, Elle, and other publications. Beneath the Lion’s Gaze, her debut, was selected by the Guardian as one of the 10 best contemporary African books. Maaza has been awarded fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, DAAD, the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers, and the Fulbright Scholar Program.
Mina Thabet is a UK-based writer, researcher and human rights expert focusing on the Middle East and North Africa. He is the head of the MENA region for PEN International and has been covering issues of freedom of expression and the challenges writers face across the region. He has also worked with minority communities in the region to combat discrimination and violence against religious and ethnic minorities and promote diverse cultures, languages, and religious freedoms.
Jordan Elgrably is an American, French and Moroccan writer and translator whose stories and creative nonfiction have appeared in many anthologies and reviews, including Apulée, Salmagundi, and the Paris Review. Editor-in-chief and founder of The Markaz Review, he is the cofounder and former director of the Levantine Cultural Center/The Markaz in Los Angeles (2001–2020). He is the editor of Stories From the Center of the World: New Middle East Fiction (City Lights, 2024), and co-editor with Malu Halasa of Sumūd: a New Palestinian Reader (Seven Stories, 2025), Based in Montpellier, France and California, he tweets @JordanElgrably.
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This online event is free to the public. Donations are welcome to support The Markaz Review.

TMR Book Club Discusses "Selamlik" with author Khaled Alesmael
2024-11-24 19:00 - 20:00 (Europe/Helsinki) | Online
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Join us for our final book club discussion of the year on Sunday, November 24th at 1pm EST/ 7pm CET as we dive into “Selamlik” with the author Khaled Alesmael.
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ABOUT THE BOOK:
An unflinching story about Arab masculinity and homoeroticism.
Furat, a Syrian in his early 20s, visits Sibki Park in Damascus, one of the city’s most popular cruising areas. There he learns about the hammams, secret meeting places for gay men located throughout the old city. Inside these public baths, the air is thick with the scent of bay laurel soap, and naked men hide in the steam. Furat faces sometimes violent disapproval from all levels of society, religion, and the man in the street–and yet he manages to find the love he’s been seeking just before his world collapses and he’s forced to flee.
Selamlik is the story of Furat’s journey, along with that of other refugees. It’s a journey in which they face physical and economic hardship, draconian migration laws, and the unwelcome grief, shame, and hatred they’ve carried with them from their ever more distant pasts. Despite everything, Furat remains steadfast in his pursuit of passion, pleasure, and love.
Published by World Editions, translated by Leri Price, 2024 (pages 240).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
A Syrian-Swedish queer writer, journalist, and filmmaker based in London. His writing appears in several media outlets, including New Statesman in London and Taz in Berlin. He speaks about queer literature particularly Arabic and Syrian at public events and universities, including Oxford University, the University of Sussex, and the University of Essex.
His debut novel, Selamlik (2018), A queer Syrian refugee story informed by his personal life as a gay refugee in Europe after the civil war in Syria and the book has received notable acclaim and was shortlisted for the German SKOUTZ Award in 2021.
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Rencontre et Atelier : TRADUIRE LA LITTÉRATURE ARABE
2024-11-26 15:00 - 19:30 (Europe/Helsinki) | Maison des relations internationales, Esplanade Charles-de-Gaulle , Montpellier, 34000, France
ATELIER DÉCOUVERTE DE LA TRADUCTION ARABE VIA LA POÉSIE 15h00-16h30

Participez à un atelier de découverte de la langue arabe et de sa traduction. Comment aborder une nouvelle langue ? Animé par Lotfi Nia, cet atelier vous invite à un voyage collectif entre les langues pour explorer la traduction à travers un poème.
À la Boutique d’écriture & Co
76 Rue du Faubourg Figuerolles, Montpellier.
Gratuit sur inscription par email association@laboutiquedecriture.org ou par téléphone 04 67 02 17 41

RENCONTRE SUR LA TRADUCTION LITTÉRAIRE ARABE 18h00 – Entrée libre

Venez découvrir la nouvelle génération d’auteurs de fiction issue du monde arabe et explorer le rôle essentiel du traducteur. Ce dernier est-il un passeur, un découvreur d’autres littératures et cultures ? Lotfi Nia nous plongera dans les coulisses du métier, en nous présentant ses récentes traductions d’auteurs contemporains parues en français.
Lotfi Nia est traducteur de l’arabe vers le français, il a collaboré avec des maisons d’édition françaises et algériennes sur des œuvres contemporaines d’Algérie, de Tunisie, du Liban et de Palestine. Il a traduit les œuvres de Samir Kacimi, Aymen Daboussi, Salah Badis ou encore Amara Lakhous. Il anime des ateliers d’expression littéraire, y compris en prison, et organise des ateliers de traduction multilingues pour les nouveaux arrivants en France, en mettant l’accent sur l’enregistrement et la transcription des performances orales. Membre du Collectif Delta (Défricheurs-Explorateurs de Littératures à Traduire Absolument) et animateur de la BaaM à Marseille (Bibliothèque arabe associée de Marseille), il enseigne également la traduction et travaille comme interprète dans le domaine de la santé.
À La Maison des Relations Internationales
Esplanade Charles-de-Gaulle, Montpellier
Ces rencontres sont organisées dans le cadre de Territoires du Livre, une opération financée par la Sofia, avec le soutien de la Fill et de l’ATLF.
En partenariat avec la Librairie Géosphère.

Festival ADAB 2024 Paris
2024-12-06 18:00 - 2024-12-07 21:00 (Europe/Helsinki) | Maison de la poésie, Passage Molière, 157 rue Saint-Martin, Paris, 75003, France
Adab signifie littérature en arabe et s’écrit ادب. Les mots turc (edebiyat) et persan (adabiyat) pour dire littérature sont des dérivés d’adab, symbole de la porosité des langues et des mots voyageurs, du Maghreb au Moyen-Orient.

Adab est un festival littéraire dédié aux nouvelles écritures venues du Maghreb et du Moyen-Orient et à la nouvelle génération d’écrivain-e-s de la région, tout en rendant hommage aux grandes plumes des dernières décennies. Depuis 2011, le monde arabe et le Moyen-Orient ont connu d’intenses bouleversements sociaux et politiques, qui se sont exprimés à travers une production culturelle renouvelée dans les pays de la région mais également dans les diasporas d’Europe. Ce sont ces nouvelles voix que nous vous donnerons à entendre durant deux jours à la Maison de la Poésie.
Pour cette deuxième édition, le public découvrira une série de rencontres différentes, tantôt individuelles avec des auteurs, tantôt sous forme de dialogue entre écrivains explorant des thèmes socio-politiques contemporains. Par ailleurs, le festival célèbrera la pluralité des genres littéraires, mettant en lumière le roman et la bande dessinée, mais aussi l’essai et d’autres formes d’écriture académique. Les moments dédiés à la littérature seront enrichis par des ateliers d’écriture adaptés à différents publics, jeunes et adultes.

ABDELLAH TAÏA : UNE CONVERSATION
2024-12-13 18:00 - 19:00 (Europe/Helsinki) | Médiathèque Émile Zola Montpellier, 218 boulevard de l'Aéroport international, Montpellier, 34000, France
Rencontre littéraire présentée par The Markaz Review avec le soutien de la Ville de Montpellier.
Rejoignez-nous pour cette dernière rencontre littéraire de l’année avec un des écrivains marocains les plus passionnants de sa génération, Abdellah Taïa qui nous parlera de son dernier roman Le Bastion des Larmes, publié aux éditions Julliard. Le livre a déjà remporté le Prix Décembre et le Prix de la Langue Française 2024.
Abdellah Taïa est né à Rabat (Maroc) en 1973 et partage son temps entre Paris et le Maroc. Il a publié aux Éditions du Seuil plusieurs romans, traduits dans de nombreuses langues, notamment Une mélancolie arabe, Le Jour du roi (Prix de Flore 2010) et Vivre à ta lumière.
Une rencontre organisée en partenariat avec la librairie Fiers de Lettres et la complicité de la Comédie du livre.

Roundtable Discussion: World Arabic Language Day
2024-12-18 19:00 - 20:00 (Europe/Helsinki) | Online
.في اليوم العالمي للغة العربية، يسر المركز بالعربي دعوتكم إلى مائدة مستديرة باللغة العربية لأول مرة
يشارك في المائدة الكاتب والصحفي المصري أحمد ناجي، حيث سيناقش سياسات إنتاج العربية الفصحى من القرن التاسع عشر وحتى عصر الذكاء الإصطناعي. كما تشارك الكتابة والروائية المصرية نورا ناجي، حيث ستناقش تأثير العوامل الثقافية والاجتماعية على تشكيل أسلوب
.الكاتبات، وإلى أي مدى تعبر اللغة عن خصوصية التجربة النسائية مقارنة بالأدب العام
.يدير المائدة محمد ربيع، وهو كاتب ومحرر وشريك مؤسس في مكتبة خان الجنوب في برلين

رد على الدعوة هنا

On the World Arabic Language Day, The Markaz Bil Arabi is pleased to invite you to our first-ever roundtable in Arabic on Wednesday, December 18th at 1pm EST/ 6pm UK/ 7pm CET.
Egyptian writer and journalist Ahmed Naji will participate in the roundtable, where he will discuss the policies of producing classical Arabic from the 19th century until the age of artificial intelligence. Egyptian writer and novelist Nora Nagi will also participate, where she will discuss the impact of cultural and social factors on shaping the style of female writers, and to what extent language expresses the specificity of the female experience compared to general literature.
The roundtable will be moderated by Mohammad Rabie, TMR’s Arabic editor, a novelist and founding partner of the Khan Aljanub Bookstore in Berlin.
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U.S. Book Tour: "Sumūd: A New Palestinian Reader" with editors Malu Halasa, Jordan Elgrably & Special Guests
2025-01-24 19:00 - 2025-02-05 17:00 (America/New_York)
Mala Halasa & Jordan Elgrably on tour for their new anthology, Sumūd: A New Palestinian Reader, from Seven Stories Press, with special guests:

“A powerful and inspiring testament to the human spirit, to the resilience of the Palestinian people, and to their indomitable struggle for liberation.”
—Nathan Thrall, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Day in the Life of Abed Salama

Tour dates and locations:

Jan. 24, 7 pm (Fri) Politics and Prose, 5015 Connecticut Avenue NW, Washington, D.C. 20008
Jan. 30, 5:15 pm (Thurs) Harvard, Harvard Divinity School, 45 Francis Ave, Cambridge, MA, 02138 RSVP Online
Jan 31, 5:30 pm (Fri) University of Pennsylvania, 3451 Walnut St, Philadelphia, PA 19104 (special guest Ahmad Almallah) More info
Feb. 5, 5-7 pm (Wed) NYU, Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute, 20 Cooper Square NYC 10003 (special guest Mosab Abu Toha & Lina Mounzer ) RSVP Online

Donations are welcome to support The Markaz Review.
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About the book:

An anthology that celebrates the power of culture in Palestinian resistance, with selections of memoir, short stories, essays, book reviews, personal narrative, poetry, and art.
Includes twenty-five black-and-white illustrations by Palestinian artists.

The Arabic word sumūd is often loosely translated as “steadfastness” or “standing fast.” It is, above all, a Palestinian cultural value of everyday perseverance in the face of Israeli occupation. Sumūd is both a personal and collective commitment; people determine their own lives, despite the environment of constant oppressions imposed upon them.
In times of devastation, poetry, literature, and art are the mediums through which oppressed peoples reveal cherished aspects of their existences and remain defiant in the fight for self-determination. Sumūd: A New Palestinian Reader honors the Palestinian spirit and its power in the face of dispossession and war. When governments around the world enable the genocide of a people and the dilapidation of a sacred homeland, the Palestinian people stand fast and resist. The fifty-eight contributions in this collection remind readers that just as love perseveres, so do the Palestinians, and their struggles and triumphs.
The essays, stories, poetry, art and personal narrative collected in Sumūd: A New Palestinian Reader is a rich riposte to those who would denigrate Palestinians’ aspirations for a homeland. It also serves as a timely reminder of culture’s power and importance during occupation and war.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
About the editors:
MALU HALASA, Literary Editor at The Markaz Review, is a London-based writer and editor. Her latest book as editor is Woman Life Freedom: Voices and Art From the Women’s Protests in Iran (Saqi 2023). Her six previous co-edited anthologies include Syria Speaks: Art and Culture from the Frontline, with coedited with Zaher Omareen & Nawara Mahfoud; The Secret Life of Syrian Lingerie: Intimacy and Design, with Rana Salam; and the short series: Transit Beirut: New Writing and Images, with Rosanne Khalaf, and Transit Tehran: Young Iran and Its Inspirations, with Maziar Bahari. She was managing editor of the Prince Claus Fund Library; a founding editor of Tank Magazine and Editor at Large for Portal 9. As a freelance journalist in London, she has covered wide-ranging subjects, from water as occupation in Israel/Palestine to Syrian comics during the present-day conflict. Her books, exhibitions and lectures chart a changing Middle East. Malu Halasa’s debut novel, Mother of All Pigs was reviewed by the New York Times as “a microcosmic portrait of … a patriarchal order in slow-motion decline.”

JORDAN ELGRABLY is a Franco-American and Moroccan writer and translator, whose stories and creative nonfiction have appeared in numerous anthologies and reviews, including Apulée, Salmagundi, and The Paris Review. Editor-in-chief and founder of The Markaz Review, he is the cofounder and former director of the Levantine Cultural Center/The Markaz in Los Angeles (2001–2020). He is the editor of Stories from the Center of the World: New Middle East Fiction (City Lights 2024) and co-editor with Malu Halasa of Sumūd: a New Palestinian Reader (Seven Stories Press 2024). Based in Montpellier, France and California.

+ DE FIRN – Nuit noire de la lecture
2025-01-25 18:30 - 19:30 (Europe/Helsinki) | Chapelle Saint-Jacques, Rue Frédéric Mistral, Frontignan la Peyrade, 34110
Événement proposé et labellisé dans le cadre des Nuits de la Lecture 2025.
Lecture performée autour du roman Nul ennemi comme un frère (Agullo), premier tome d’une trilogie sur la guerre civile au Liban, par et avec l’auteur Frédéric Paulin, accompagné au tarhu par le musicien Nicolas Beck et en vidéo par Géraldine Giordano.
Avec la participation exceptionnelle de l’acteur et metteur en scène libanais Roger Assaf (Lion d’Or Biennale de théâtre de Venise 2008).
18h30 – Chapelle Saint-Jacques, rue Frédéric-Mistral
Entrée libre sur réservation au 04 67 18 54 92 / culture@frontignan.fr
En savoir plus: https://www.frontignan.fr/evenement/de-firn-nuit-noire-de-la-lecture/

TMR Book Club discusses "Granada: the complete trilogy" by Radwa Ashour with translator Kay Heikkinen
2025-01-26 19:00 - 20:00 (Europe/Helsinki) | Online
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Join us on Sunday, January 26th at 1pm EST/ 6pm UK/ 7pm CET to discuss “Granada: the complete trilogy” by Radwa Ashour with translator, Kay Heikkinen.
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About the book:
Named a top literary work of the 20th century by the Arab Writers’ Union, this multigenerational epic is set at the collapse of Muslim rule in Medieval Spain, available now for the first time in a new, complete translation.
Set in 1492, Granada is about an ordinary Muslim family who must survive the Christian conquest of Arabic Spain. As the Castilian forces enter Granada, Muslims are slowly stripped of their rights: confiscations, forced conversions, and expulsions.
As the triumphant new masters of Granada burn books, Abu Jaafar, a bookseller by trade, quietly moves his rich library out of town, while preparing for the marriage of his granddaughter Saleema to his apprentice Saad. The tangled lives of Abu Jaafar’s family, his descendants, and his community bear witness to the vanquishing of Muslim life.
Radwa Ashour’s sweeping trilogy, set over one hundred years against the backdrop of the great historical events of 16th century Europe, tells the story of those who remained in Andalusia, of the individuals who struggled to maintain faith and hope for a possible future. It narrates a community’s effort to comprehend what has happened to them, of their valiant but ultimately unsuccessful efforts to resist the destruction of their identity.
Published by Hoopoe, translated by Kay Heikkinen, 2024.
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About the author and translator:
Radwa Ashour (1946–2014) is a highly acclaimed Egyptian writer and scholar. She is the author of more than fifteen works of fiction, memoir, and criticism, including Granada (AUC Press, 2008) and The Woman from Tantoura (AUC Press, 2014), and was a recipient of the Constantine Cavafy Prize for Literature and the prestigious Owais Prize for Fiction.
Kay Heikkinen is a translator and academic who holds a PhD from Harvard University. She was previously Ibn Rushd Lecturer of Arabic at the University of Chicago. Among other books, she has translated Naguib Mahfouz’s In the Time of Love, Radwa Ashour’s The Woman From Tantoura, and Huzama Habayeb’s Velvet, for which she was awarded the 2020 Saif-Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation. She lives in Seattle, Washington.
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Roundtable Discussion: Syria’s Cultural Renaissance — Boom or Bust?
2025-02-12 19:00 - 20:00 (Europe/Paris) | Online
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The creative outburst of the 2011 revolution broke through Syria’s “kingdom of silence” and revealed new art, voices, and writing never before seen or heard. As the country emerges from a 53-year-long dictatorship, can culture heal old wounds? Will creative minds envision the building blocks needed for the new Syria? Some say, the current challenges are insurmountable. Explore possibilities with BBC correspondent and film director Lina Sinjab, filmmaker Yasmin Fedda, and fiction writer Odai Al Zoubi. Moderated by Malu Halasa, TMR’s Literary Editor and co-author of Syria Speaks: Art and Culture from the Frontline (2014).
This roundtable discussion will take place online on Wednesday, February 12th at 1pm EST/ 6pm UK/ 7pm CET.
This online event is free and open to the public. Donations are welcome to support The Markaz Review.
RSVP here
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About the speakers:
Odai Al Zoubi is a Syrian short-story writer, essayist, and translator. His short story collections include Nisf ibtisma [A Half Smile] (Mamdouh Adwan Publishing House, 2022); Kitab alhikma wa alsathaja [The Book of Wisdom and Naïveté] (Mamdouh Adwan Publishing House, 2019), Nawafeth [Windows] (Al Mutawassit Publications, 2017), and Al-Samat [Silence] (Al Mutawassit Publications, 2015). He is also the author of collected essays: Qindl om hashim almafqūd [Om Hashim’s Lost Lamp] (Syrian League for Citizenship, 2016). Al Zoubi was awarded a 2023 creative and critical writings grant from AFAC (Arab Fund for Arts and Culture) for Empty Heavens, short stories about everyday Syrians in their countries of refuge. His short story “Ten-Armed Gods” was published in The Markaz Review: https://themarkaz.org/oldsite/ten-armed-gods-a-short-story-by-odai-al-zoubi/

Yasmin Fedda is a Palestinian cultural practitioner, best known as a filmmaker. Her work is multi-award winning and has been widely screened and exhibited across the world at festivals, on TV, and in galleries. Ayouni (2020) is her most recent Syria-focused film about people forcibly disappeared, focusing on Bassel Safadi and Paolo Dall’Oglio. Yasmin is Senior Lecturer in Film at Queen Mary University, London. Yasmin Fedda’s essay, with Dan Gorman, “Three Nights in Free Syria” was published in The Markaz Review: https://themarkaz.org/oldsite/three-nights-in-free-syria/

Lina Sinjab is an independent filmmaker and a BBC Middle East correspondent based in Beirut. She also contributes to several international media outlets and is a frequent contributor to Syria From Within, a Chatham House policy initiative. Sinjab has covered the Syrian uprising extensively since it began in 2011. She produced and directed the film Madness in Aleppo (2019), about the siege of the city. In 2014 and 2016, Sinjab covered the Syria peace talks in Geneva as the BBC’s world affairs reporter. She directed the film Suryyat (2013), on Syrian women during the uprising. In 2013, Sinjab won the International Media Cutting Edge Award for her coverage of Syria.

Malu Halasa, Literary Editor at The Markaz Review, is a Jordanian Filipina American writer and editor. Her latest edited anthologies are Sumūd: A New Palestinian Reader with Jordan Elgrably (Seven Stories Press, 2025) and Woman Life Freedom: Voices and Art From the Women’s Protests in Iran (Saqi Books, 2023). Previous co-edited anthologies include: Syria Speaks: Art and Culture from the Frontline (Saqi Books, 2014); The Secret Life of Syrian Lingerie: Intimacy and Design (Chronicle Books, 2008); Kaveh Golestan: Recording the Truth in Iran (Hatje Cantz, 2005); and the short series: Transit Beirut: New Writing and Images, with Rosanne Khalaf (Saqi Books, 2004), and Transit Tehran: Young Iran and Its Inspirations, with Maziar Bahari, (Garnet Press, 2008). She was managing editor of the Prince Claus Fund Library, in Amsterdam; Editor at Large for Portal 9, in Beirut, and a founding editor of Tank Magazine, in London. She has written for The Guardian, Financial Times and Times Literary Supplement. Her debut novel, Mother of All Pigs (Unnamed Press, 2017), was described as: “a microcosmic portrait of … a patriarchal order in slow-motion decline” by the New York Times. Her writing, edited anthologies, and exhibitions chart a changing Middle East.

Shakespeare in Arabic: Translating Western Theatre Classics
2025-02-17 19:00 - 21:00 (Europe/Helsinki) | Reid Hall: Grande Salle Ginsberg-LeClerc, 4 rue de Chevreuse, Paris, France
The Markaz Review is proud to co-sponsor this event on “Shakespeare in Arabic” organized by Columbia Global Paris Center and the American University of Beirut on Monday, February 17th at 7pm in Paris.
This event will explore Arabic adaptation of Western theatre classics from Shakespeare to Brecht, culminating in a showcase of a bilingual Arabic-English adaptation of Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida.
British theater producer Georgina Van Welie, along with Lebanese theater makers Lucian Bourjeilly and Caroline Hatem, will discuss their experiences of Arabic adaptations of Western classics and creating work both in the region and internationally.
The discussion will be followed by an extract from Georgina Van Welie’s Arabic/English adaptation in development of Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida, translated by Ghareeb Iskander, with video by Syrian artist Bissane Al Charif.
To learn more and register: https://globalcenters.columbia.edu/events/shakespeare-arabic

TMR Book Club Discusses "Too Soon: a novel" with author Betty Shamieh
2025-02-23 19:00 - 20:00 (Europe/Paris) | Online
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Join us on Sunday, February 23rd at 1pm EST/ 6pm UK/ 7pm CET to discuss “Too Soon: a novel” with author Betty Shamieh.
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About the book:
Thirty-five-year-old Arabella, a New York theatre director whose dating and career prospects are drying up, is offered an opportunity to direct a risqué cross-dressing interpretation of a Shakespeare classic—that might garner international attention—in the West Bank. Her mother, Naya, and grandmother, Zoya, hatch a plot to match her with Aziz, a Palestinian American doctor volunteering in Gaza. Arabella agrees to meet Aziz, since her growing feelings for Yoav, a celebrated Israeli American theatre designer, seem destined for disaster…
With biting hilarity, “Too Soon” introduces us to a trio of bold and unforgettable voices. This dramatic saga follows one family’s epic journey fleeing war-torn Jaffa in 1948, chasing the American Dream in Detroit and San Francisco in the sixties and seventies, hustling in the New York theatre scene post-9/11, and daring to stage a show in Palestine in 2012. Upon learning one of them is living on borrowed time, the three women fight to live, make art, and love on their own terms. A funny, sexy, and heart-wrenching literary debut, “Too Soon” illuminates our shared history and asks, how can we set ourselves free?
Published by Simon & Schuster, 2025.
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About the author:
Betty Shamieh is a Palestinian American writer and the author of fifteen plays. She is the playwright-in-residence at the Classical Theatre of Harlem. Her six New York play premieres include the sold-out off-Broadway runs of Roar and Malvolio, a sequel to Twelfth Night, which were both New York Times Critic’s Picks. Shamieh was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and named a UNESCO Young Artist for Intercultural Dialogue. She is a founding artistic director of The Semitic Root, a collective that supports innovative theatre cocreated by Arab and Jewish Americans. A graduate of Harvard College and the Yale School of Drama, she lives with her family in San Francisco.
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This online event is free and open to the public. Donations are welcome to support The Markaz Review.
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Book Reading: "Sumūd: A New Palestinian Reader" at P21 Gallery London
2025-02-27 18:30 - 20:30 UTC | P21 Gallery, 21-27 Chalton Street, London, NW1 1JD, United Kingdom
Book here
With readings and illustrated presentations, this book launch celebrates the UK publication of Sumūd: A New Palestinian Reader, an anthology that celebrates the power of culture in Palestinian resistance, with selections of memoir, short stories, essays, book reviews, personal narrative, poetry, and art. The Arabic word sumūd is often loosely translated as “steadfastness” or “standing fast.” It is, above all, a Palestinian cultural value of everyday perseverance in the face of Israeli occupation. Sumūd is both a personal and collective commitment; people determine their own lives, despite the environment of constant oppressions imposed upon them. In times of devastation, poetry, literature, and art are the mediums through which oppressed peoples reveal cherished aspects of their existences and remain defiant in the fight for self-determination. Sumūd: A New Palestinian Reader honors the Palestinian spirit and its power in the face of dispossession and war. When governments around the world enable the genocide of a people and the dilapidation of a sacred homeland, the Palestinian people stand fast and resist. The fifty-eight contributions in this collection remind readers that just as love perseveres, so do the Palestinians, and their struggles and triumphs.
This anthology spans the 20th and 21st centuries of Palestinian cultural history, and highlights writing from 2021–2024. The collection of writing and art includes: Dispatches from Hossam Madhoun, co-founder of Gaza’s Theatre for Everybody, as he survives the post-October 2023 war on Gaza; Novelist Ahmed Masoud with “Application 39,” a sci-fi short story about a Dystopian bid for the Olympics; Sara Roy and Ivar Ekeland with “The New Politics of Exclusion: Gaza as Prologue,” an analysis of Israel’s divide and conquer policies of fragmentation; Historian Ilan Pappé with a review of Tahrir Hamdi’s book, Imagining Palestine, in which he unpacks the relationship between culture and resistance; Essayist Lina Mounzer with “Palestine and the Unspeakable,” an offering on the language used to dehumanize Palestinians; And poetry by the next generation of poets who have inherited the mantle of the late Mahmoud Darwish (1941–2008). Sumūd also includes twenty-five black-and-white illustrations by Palestinian artists.
Sumūd: a New Palestinian Reader is published by 7 Stories Press. Books will be available on sale at the event.
This event is hosted by P21 Gallery with support from Arts Canteen.
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About the speakers:
Malu Halasa is co-editor of Sumūd: A New Palestinian Reader and Literary Editor at The Markaz Review.
Jordan Elgrably is co-editor of Sumūd: A New Palestinian Reader and Editor-in-Chief of The Markaz Review.
Nadine Aranki is the art editor of Sumūd: A New Palestinian Reader and West Bank curator and writer.
Saeed Taji Farouky is a contributor to Sumūd: A New Palestinian Reader, filmmaker, journalist and educator/lecturer.
Book here

TMR Book Club Discusses “Sumūd: A New Palestinian Reader” with the editors and special guests
2025-03-30 19:00 - 20:00 (Europe/Paris) | Online
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Join us to discuss Sumūd: A New Palestinian Reader online with special guest speakers Zeina Azzam and Saleem Haddad on Sunday, March 30th at 1 pm Eastern/19:00 CET. Moderated by co-editors Malu Halasa and Jordan Elgrably.
When governments around the world enable the genocide of a people and the dilapidation of a sacred homeland, the Palestinian people stand fast and resist. The fifty-eight contributions in this collection remind readers that just as love perseveres, so do the Palestinians, and their struggles and triumphs.
Sumūd stands for a rich riposte to those who would denigrate Palestinians’ aspirations for a homeland. It also serves as a timely reminder of culture’s power and importance during occupation and war. This anthology spans the 20th and 21st centuries of Palestinian cultural history, and highlights writing from 2021–2024. It also includes twenty-five black-and-white illustrations by Palestinian artists. Published by Seven Stories Press, 2025.
This event is online and free to the public. Donations are welcome to support The Markaz Review.
RSVP here
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
About the speakers:
Malu Halasa is a Jordanian Filipina American writer and editor, Literary Editor at The Markaz Review, and co-editor of Sumūd: A New Palestinian Reader (Seven Stories Press, 2025). Her latest edited anthology is Woman Life Freedom: Voices and Art From the Women’s Protests in Iran (Saqi Books, 2023).
Jordan Elgrably is a Franco-American and Moroccan writer and translator, whose stories and creative nonfiction have appeared in numerous anthologies and reviews, including Apulée, Salmagundi, and The Paris Review. Editor-in-chief and founder of The Markaz Review. His latest edited anthology is Stories from the Center of the World: New Middle East Fiction (City Lights, 2024).
Zeina Azzam is a Palestinian American poet, writer, editor, and community activist. Her books include the collection of poems Some Things Never Leave You (Tiger Bark Press, 2023) and the chapbook Bayna Bayna, In-Between (The Poetry Box, 2021). She is the poet laureate of the City of Alexandria, Virginia, for 2022–2025.
Saleem Haddad is a novelist and writer. His critically acclaimed novel, Guapa (Europa Editions, 2016) was awarded both a Stonewall Honour and the 2017 Polari First Book Prize. He also writes nonfiction and short stories, and his story for the Palestinian sci-fi anthology Palestine +100 (Comma Press, 2019) was selected as one of the best sci-fi stories of 2019. His directorial debut, Marco, premiered in 2019 and was nominated for the 2019 Iris Prize for Best British Short Film. He is currently based in Lisbon, with roots in London, Amman, Beirut, and Palestine.

TMR Book Club Discusses Youssef Rakha's "The Dissenters"
2025-04-27 19:00 - 20:00 (Europe/Helsinki) | Online
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This month, the TMR Book Club will be discussing Youssef Rakha’s debut novel, The Dissenters. We will meet online on Sunday, April 27th at 1pm EST/6pm UK/7pm CET.

ABOUT THE BOOK:
Hallucinatory, erotic, and stylish, The Dissenters is a transcendent portrait of a woman and an era that explodes our ideas of faith, gender roles, freedom, and political agency.
Amna, Nimo, Mouna—these are all names for a single Egyptian woman whose life has mirrored that of her country. After her death in 2015, her son, Nour, ascends to the attic of their house where he glimpses her in a series of ever more immersive visions: Amna as a young woman forced into an arranged marriage in the 1950s, a coquettish student of French known to her confidants as Nimo, a self-made divorcee and a lover, a “pious mama” donning her hijab, and, finally, a feminist activist during the Arab Spring. Charged and renewed by these visions of a woman he has always known as Mouna, Nour begins a series of fevered letters to his sister—who has been estranged from Mouna and from Egypt for many years—in an attempt to reconcile what both siblings know about this mercurial woman, their country, and the possibility for true revolution after so much has failed.
Published by Graywolf Press, 2025.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Youssef Rakha is an Egyptian novelist, poet and critic working in both Arabic and English. His short story collection, Emissaries, is out from Barakunan. His first novel The Dissenters, is his first novel. He lives with his family in Cairo.

This online event is free and open to the public. Registration is required. Learn about how you can support The Markaz Review.
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Jordan Elgrably à la Comédie du Livre
2025-05-16 16:00 - 18:00 (Europe/Helsinki) | Comédie du Livre, Promenade du Peyrou, Montpellier, 34000, France
Venez rencontrer le rédacteur en chef de The Markaz Review et découvrir ses derniers ouvrages imprimés, « Stories from the Center of the World : New Middle East Fiction » et « Sumūd : A New Palestinian Reader » dans le cadre de la Comédie du Livre. Il présentera ses romans en anglais. Promenade de Peyrou.
QUAND:

le 16 mai entre 16h00 et 18h00
le 17 mai entre 11h00 et 12h00

OÙ: au stand Grain des Mots, Promenade de Peyrou.
On a hâte de vous y retrouver !
En savoir plus sur la Comédie du Livre : https://www.10joursenmai.fr/
À propos de l’auteur :
Jordan Elgrably est un écrivain et traducteur américain, français et marocain dont les récits et la non-fiction créative ont été publiés dans de nombreuses anthologies et revues, notamment Apulée, Salmagundi et la Paris Review. Rédacteur en chef et fondateur de The Markaz Review, il est cofondateur et ancien directeur du Levantine Cultural Center/The Markaz à Los Angeles (2001-2020). Il est l’éditeur de Stories From the Center of the World : New Middle East Fiction (City Lights, 2024), et co-éditeur avec Malu Halasa de Sumūd : a New Palestinian Reader (Seven Stories, 2025). Basé à Montpellier, en France, et en Californie, il écrit sur Twitter @JordanElgrably.
___ ___ ___
Jordan Elgrably at the Comédie du Livre
Come and meet the editor of The Markaz Review and discover his latest books in print, “Stories from the Center of the World: New Middle East Fiction” and “Sumūd: A New Palestinian Reader” as part of the Comédie du Livre. He will be presenting his novels in English.
WHEN:

May 16 between 4:00 pm and 6:00 pm
May 17 between 11:00am and 12:00pm

WHERE: at the Grain des Mots stand
We look forward to seeing you there!
Learn more about the Comédie du Livre: https://www.10joursenmai.fr/
About the author:
Jordan Elgrably is an American, French and Moroccan writer and translator whose stories and creative nonfiction have appeared in many anthologies and reviews, including Apulée, Salmagundi, and the Paris Review. Editor-in-chief and founder of The Markaz Review, he is the cofounder and former director of the Levantine Cultural Center/The Markaz in Los Angeles (2001–2020). He is the editor of Stories From the Center of the World: New Middle East Fiction (City Lights, 2024), and co-editor with Malu Halasa of Sumūd: a New Palestinian Reader (Seven Stories, 2025). Based in Montpellier, France and California, he tweets @JordanElgrably.

CAN YOU EVER GO HOME AGAIN? – A roundtable on TMR's RETURNING HOME
2025-05-22 19:00 - 20:00 (Europe/Helsinki) | Online
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In the 50th issue of The Markaz Review’s RETURNING HOME, writers and artists reflect on whether we can really ever go home again. In “Home is Elsewhere: On the Fictions of Return,” Mai Al-Nakib writes that her childhood home differed from her birthplace; she perceives home as more imaginary than real. In “A Kashmiri in Cashmere,” Nafeesa Syeed hopes she’ll feel at home in a small Washington town east of Seattle, named after her native region, caught between India and Pakistan. And Gabriel Polley interviews British-Bahraini musician-composer Yazz Ahmed in “Arabic Jazz and Yazz Ahmed: A Music Between Homelands,” on how Arabic jazz challenges negative stereotypes amid rising xenophobia in the West. The issue contains 14 stories, looking at Sudanese creatives in Egypt, young Palestinian citizens of Israel, an Iraqi artist who goes home after living in the USA for 40 years, and much more.
Join us on Thursday, May 22nd at 1pm EST/ 6pm UK/ 7pm CET for a roundtable discussion on our 50th issue, RETURNING HOME, with writers Mai Al-Nakib, Gabriel Polley and Nafeesa Syeed. Moderated by Lina Mounzer.
This online event is free but advance registration is required. Donations are welcome to support The Markaz Review.
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About the speakers:
Mai Al-Nakib is author of the novel, An Unlasting Home and the award-winning collection of short stories, The Hidden Light of Objects. As an associate professor, she taught English and comparative literature at Kuwait University for twenty years. She now writes full time in Kuwait.
Gabriel Polley has a PhD in Palestine studies from the European Centre for Palestine Studies, University of Exeter, UK. He previously studied history of art and literature at the University of East Anglia, and Palestine and Arabic studies at Birzeit University, and taught in the occupied West Bank. He currently works in London in the translation and international development sectors. Palestine in the Victorian Age is his first book.
Nafeesa Syeed is a writer and editor who hails from Kashmir. She’s also a lecturer and associate research scholar at Yale.
Lina Mounzer (moderator) is the senior editor of The Markaz Review and a prominent essayist whose creative nonfiction has appeared widely, including in The Baffler and the Paris Review, among other publications.
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TMR Exhibition: Art of the Palestinian Poster at P21 Gallery — Shubbak Festival
2025-05-23 - 2025-06-14 | P21 Gallery, 21-27 Chalton Street, London, NW1 1JD, United Kingdom
An evocative exhibition showcases the resurgence of Palestinian political posters as powerful works of art and vital campaigning tools during the war on Gaza for Shubbak 2025. Curated by TMR’s literary editor Malu Halasa, the collection includes anti-war works by the original members of New Vision collective — artists fundamental to the creation of Palestinian modern art Vera Tamari, Sliman Mansour, Tayseer Barakat, and Nabil Anani — alongside contemporary posters by Gazan artist Hazem Harb, popular Lebanese musician Khaled El Haber, and Palestinian new generation poster-maker Haneen Nazzal, among many others.
ASAD AZI (Palestinian, B. 1955), "EKHTILAL," 2023, Acrylic on paper, 75 x 55 cm BASHAR KHALAF
(Palestinian, B. 1991)

GOD, MAKE THIS HOUSE SAFE (2023)
Collage on paper
75 x 55 cm
DYALA MOSHTAHA
(Palestinian, B. 1997)

FREEDOM IN BLOOM (2023)
FineArt archival paper, 310 gsm
75 x 55 cm | Edition of 10 (+AP)
HASSAN MANASRAH
(Palestinian, B. 1980)

PALESTINIAN WOMAN (2023)
FineArt archival paper, 310 gsm
75 x 55 cm | Edition of 10 (+AP)
HAZEM HARB
(Palestinian, B. 1980)

THEY ARE NOW STEALING YOUR SKIN (2024) Charcoal on paper
75 x 55 cm
HOSNI RADWAN
(Palestinian, B. 1955)

ALL RIGHTS NOT RESERVED - GAZA (2023) FineArt archival paper, 310 gsm
75 x 55 cm | Edition of 10 (+AP)
KHALED EL HABER
(Labanese, B. 1956)

WE ARE DOING FINE IN GAZA... WHAT ABOUT YOU?! (2024) FineArt archival paper, 310 gsm
75 x 55 cm | Edition of 10 (+AP)
MOHAMMED JOHA
(Palestinian, B. 1978)

SLEEPLESS (2024)
Acrylic on paper
75 x 55 cm
NABIL ANANI
(Palestinian, B. 1943)

STOP THE GENOCIDE (2023)
Mixed media on paper
75 x 55 cm
SLIMAN MANSOUR
(Palestinian, B. 1947)

DISTORTION (2023)
FineArt archival paper, 310 gsm
75 x 55 cm | Edition of 5 (+AP)
TAYSEER BARAKAT
(Palestinian, B. 1959)

UNTITLED (2023)
Acrylic and mixed media on paper
75 x 55 cm

This collection of artful posters, originally from the Zawyeh Gallery of Ramallah and Dubai and never before exhibited in the UK, appear with posters for Palestine hacked into London bus shelters by the anonymous activist group Protest Stencil; the stark infographic posters by the decolonizing collective Visualizing Palestine; and posters that pro-Palestinian protestors downloaded from the internet, printed, and carried on demonstrations. An opening night event will take place on May 23 from 6:30 to 8:30 pm, £5 admission (more information here).
A poster roundtable discussion will also take place on June 11 at P21 Gallery (6:30-8:30 pm), with Palestinian artist Vera Tamari, Visualizing Palestine’s Aline Batarseh, West Bank curator Nadine Aranki, and Professor Dina Matar from SOAS Centre of Palestinian Studies, will discuss art in Palestinian resistance and the political and aesthetic impact of Palestinian political posters.
Learn more about this exhibition
The Art of the Palestinian Poster exhibition is part of the London-wide Shubbak: A Window on Contemporary Arab Culture festival. Shubbak Festival (meaning ‘window’ in Arabic) is Europe’s largest biennial celebration of contemporary Arab and SWANA (South West Asian & North African) arts and culture. Taking place from 23 May to 15 June 2025, the festival will showcase bold, innovative, and culturally authentic works across visual arts, film, music, theatre, dance, literature, and debates—connecting audiences in London, across the UK, and beyond.

TMR Book Club Discusses Zahran Alqasmi's "Honey Hunger" with translator Marilyn Booth
2025-05-25 19:00 - 20:00 (Europe/Helsinki) | Online
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This month, join us online for a special discussion on Zahran Alqasmi’s “Honey Hunger” with translator Marilyn Booth. We meet online on Sunday, May 25th at 1pm EST/ 6pm UK/ 7pm CET. Moderated by TMR’s Managing Editor Rana Asfour.
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About the book:
A novel of longing, uncertainty, and ultimately of hope, written by an International Prize for Arabic Fiction-winning author and an International Booker-prize winning translator.
Azzan is a beekeeper in a rural community in Oman. Devoted to tending his bees and searching for wild hives, he encounters Thamna, a lone shepherd woman, on a mountain slope and is captivated by her and her honey-colored eyes.
Zahran Alqasmi’s masterful novel thrums forward with a subtle momentum. His lucid, poetic writing conveys a visceral sense of time and place, of the fragile ecologies inhabited by both bees and humans alike, in this intense and compelling novel of loss and hope.
Published by Hoopoe, 2025.

About the author & translator:
Zahran Alqasmi (Author) is an Omani poet and novelist, born in the Sultanate of Oman in 1974. Honey Hunger was his third of four published novels, and in 2023 he won the International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF) for The Water Diviner. He has also published ten poetry collections and a collection of short stories.
Marilyn Booth (Translated by) is professor emerita, Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies and Magdalen College, Oxford University. She has translated many works of Arabic fiction into English. Her translations of Omani author Jokha Alharthi include Bitter Orange Tree and Celestial Bodies, which was awarded the International Booker Prize. She has also translated Hoda Barakat, Hassan Daoud, Elias Khoury, Latifa al-Zayyat, and Nawal al-Saadawi. Her research publications focus on Arabophone women’s writing and the ideology of gender debates in the nineteenth century, most recently The Career and Communities of Zaynab Fawwaz: Feminist Thinking in Fin-de-siècle Egypt.
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This online event is free and open to the public. Registration is required. Donations are welcome to support The Markaz Review.
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The Markaz Review Workshop: Writing From the Center of the World
2025-05-31 10:30 - 17:30 (Europe/Helsinki) | Arab British Centre, 1 Gough Square, London, EC4A 3DE, United Kingdom
Whether you’re a seasoned or emerging writer, join TMR’s daylong writing workshop that aims to inspire and empower writers to engage with the Middle East and the wider world through the lens of creative expression. During this event, you will also get a chance to meet TMR’s editorial team, including editor-in-chief Jordan Elgrably, managing editor Rana Asfour, and literary editor Malu Halasa. Learn about TMR’s mission to provide critical and creative perspectives on SWANA arts, and discover how TMR has become a platform for the voices of Gaza, queer fiction from the region, and literary work that challenges and reshapes perceptions of and in the region.
Event highlights include an introduction to The Markaz Review (10:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.), a workshop on critical writing and reviewing (12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m.), a workshop on fiction and literary nonfiction (3:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.), and a workshop on translation and publishing (4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.). Although the event is free, booking is essential.
Learn more about this event

TMR Book Club Discusses Bothayna Al-Essa's "The Book Censor's Library," translated by Sawad Hussain & Ranya Abdelrahman
2025-06-29 19:00 - 20:00 (Europe/Helsinki) | Online
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Join The Markaz Review’s Book Club on Sunday, June 29th at 1pm EST/ 6pm UK/ 7pm CET to dive into Bothayna Al-Essa’s “The Book Censor’s Library,” translated by Sawad Hussain & Ranya Abdelrahman. Hosted by TMR’s Managing Editor, Rana Asfour.

About the book:
A national book award finalist, the novel is a reckoning with the global threat to free speech and the bleak future it all but guarantees. Bothayna Al-Essa marries the steely dystopia of Orwell’s 1984 with the madcap absurdity of Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, resulting in a dreadful twist worthy of Kafka. The Guardian of Surfaces is a warning call and a love letter to stories and the delicious act of losing oneself in them.
The new book censor has not slept soundly in weeks. By day, he combs through manuscripts at a government office, looking for anything that would make a book unfit to publish-allusions to queerness, unapproved religions, any mention of life before the Revolution. By night, pilfered novels pile up in the house he shares with his wife and daughter, and the characters of literary classics crowd his dreams. As the siren song of forbidden reading continues to beckon, he descends into a netherworld of resistance fighters, undercover booksellers, and outlaw librarians trying to save their history and culture.
About the author & the translators:
Bothayna Al-Essa (author) is the bestselling Kuwaiti author of nearly a dozen novels and additional children’s books. She is also the founder of Takween, a bookshop and publisher of critically acclaimed works. Her most recent book, The Book Censor’s Library, won the Sharjah Award for Creativity in the novel category in 2021 and is her third novel to appear in English, after Lost in Mecca and All That I Want to Forget. Al-Essa was author-in-residence at the British Centre for Literary Translation for the summer of 2023, and the recipient of Kuwait’s Nation Encouragement Award for her fiction in 2003 and 2012. She has written books on writing and led writing workshops throughout the Arab world.
Sawad Hussain is a translator from Arabic whose work in 2023 was shortlisted for The Warwick Prize for Women in Translation and the Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation, and longlisted for The Moore Prize for Human Rights Writing. She is a judge for the Palestine Book Awards and the Armory Square Prize for South Asian Literature in Translation (2024 cycle). Her most recent translations include Edo’s Souls by Stella Gaitano (Dedalus Books), Djinn’s Apple by Djamila Morani (Neem Tree Press).
Ranya Abdelrahman is a translator of Arabic literature into English. After working for more than 16 years in the information technology industry, she changed careers to pursue her interest in books, promoting reading and translation. Abdelrahman has published translations in ArabLit Quarterly, The Markaz Review, and The Common, and is the translator of Out of Time, a short story collection by Palestinian author Samira Azzam.

This online event is open and free to the public. Registration is required. Donations are welcome to support The Markaz Review.
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TMR Book Club Discusses The Burning Heart of the World with author Nancy Kricorian
2025-07-27 19:00 - 20:00 (Europe/Helsinki) | Online
On Sunday, July 27th TMR’s Book Club will meet to discuss The Burning Heart of the World with author Nancy Kricorian at 1pm EST/ 6pm UK/ 7pm CET. Hosted by TMR Managing Editor Rana Asfour.
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In vivid, poetic prose, Nancy Kricorian’s The Burning Heart of the World tells the story of a Beirut Armenian family before, during, and after the Lebanese Civil War. Returning to the fabular tone of Zabelle, her popular first novel, Kricorian conjures up the lost worlds and intergenerational traumas that haunt a family in permanent exile. Leavened with humor and imbued with the timelessness of a folktale, The Burning Heart of the World is a sweeping saga that takes readers on an epic journey from the mountains of Cilicia to contemporary New York City.
About the author:
Nancy Kricorian is the author of the novels Zabelle, Dreams of Bread and Fire, and All The Light There Was, focused on post-genocide Armenian diaspora life. She has taught at Barnard, Columbia, Yale, and New York University, as well as with Teacher & Writers Collaborative in the New York City Public Schools and for the Palestine Writing Workshop in Birzeit. She has been the recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, a Gold Medal from the Writers Union of Armenia, and the Anahid Literary Award. She lives in New York City.
Published by Red Hen Press, 2025.

This online event is open and free to the public. Registration is required. Donations are welcome to support The Markaz Review.
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TMR Book Club Discusses Omar Khalifah's "Sand-Catcher" with special guests
2025-09-28 19:00 - 20:00 (Europe/Helsinki) | Online
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Join us on Sunday, September 28th at 1pm EST/ 6pm UK/ 7pm CET to discuss Omar Khalifah’s Sand-Catcher with special guests!
About the book:
A sardonic, thrilling fable about collective memory and the many ways it can be saved or subverted. Omar Khalifa’s debut novel Sand-Catcher is at once a polyphonic satire and a tightly plotted tale of suspense. Walking the line between gallows humor, rage, and depthless heartbreak, it is a unique reflection of contemporary Palestinian identity in all its facets.
Four young, Palestinian journalists at a Jordanian newspaper are tasked, on account of their heritage, with profiling one of the last living witnesses of the Nakba, the violent expulsion of native Palestinians by the nascent state of Israel in 1948. Confident that the old man will be all too happy to go on record, the reporters are nonplussed when they are repeatedly, and obscenely, rebuffed. This living witness to history, this secular saint, has no desire to be interviewed, no desire for his memories to be preserved, no desire to serve as an inspiration for the youth of tomorrow. What he wants is to be left alone.
As threats from the team’s editor-in-chief put more and more pressure on the journalists, they must decide just how far they’re willing to go to get the old man on the record. After all, what possible weight can one stubborn demand for privacy have when balanced against the imperative to bear witness?
Published by Coffee House Press, 2024.
About the author & translator:
Omar Khalifah (author) is a novelist and short story writer in Arabic. His book, Nasser in the Egyptian Imaginary, was published in English by Edinburgh University Press in 2017. His collection Ka’annani Ana (As If I Were Myself) was published in Amman, Jordan in 2010, and his novel Qabid al-Raml (Sand-Catcher) was published in 2020. His articles have appeared in Middle East Critique and Journal of World Literature. A Fulbright scholar, Khalifah is assistant professor of Arabic Literature and Culture at Georgetown School of Foreign Service in Qatar.
Barbara Romaine is an academic and literary translator. She has published translations of five novels, most recently Waiting for the Past (Syracuse University Press, 2022), by the Iraqi novelist Hadiya Hussein. She has held two NEA fellowships in translation, one of which was for her work on Radwa Ashour's Spectres (Interlink Books, 2011). Spectres went on to place second in the 2011 Saif Ghobash-Banipal international translation competition. Romaine’s translations of essays, short stories, and classical poetry have appeared in a variety of literary periodicals.
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