BULAQ | بولاق

• ‘One Day,’ with Omar El Akkad

  Journalist, novelist, and memoirist Omar El Akkad talks about his latest book, One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This – a blend of memoir, social criticism, and moral philosophy. The book creates and shares space for everyone who is full of grief and rage, who cannot be at home in institutions that support or ignore genocide. We discuss the linguistic obfuscations around Gaza, El Akkad’s critique of Western liberalism, and the possibilities for a different future.Show notes:You can get One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This from Penguin Random House, where a sample of the audiobook is available, read by Omar El Akkad.Omar’s first novel, American War, is also available from Penguin Random.You can subscribe to BULAQ wherever you get your podcasts. Follow us on Twitter @bulaqbooks and Instagram @bulaq.books for news and updates. If you’d like to rate or review us, we’d appreciate that. If you’d like to support us as a listener by making a donation you can do so at https://donorbox.org/support-bulaq. BULAQ is co-produced with the podcast platform Sowt. Go to sowt.com to check out their many other excellent shows in Arabic, on music, literature, media and more. For all things related to Arabic literature in translation you should visit ArabLit.org, where you can also subscribe to the Arab Lit Quarterly. If you are interested in advertising on BULAQ or sponsoring episodes, please contact us at [email protected]. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• Listening to Syria with Alia Malek

  Journalist, author and editor Alia Malek tells us about her recent visit to Damascus and about the anthology of Syrian writing she edited for McSweeneys. Aftershocks was released in December 2024, just days after Bashar al-Assad fled Syria and the country's political prisons began to crack open. The collection brings together work by sixteen Syrian authors who write from diasporic and refugee experience, as well as from inside Syria. We discuss these key Syrian literary voices and how they and others are meeting this moment.Show notes:Get the Aftershocks anthology from McSweeney’s at store.mcsweeneys.net.Malek’s 2017 book, The Home That Was Our Country: A Memoir of Syria, is available from Bold Type Books.Read Malek’s reflections on the death of her father, “‘He Didn’t Want to Lie in a Grave That Couldn’t Be Visited” and her recent “What Did the World Learn From Syria?” in the New York Times.Read a short conversation with Aftershocks contributor Rawaa Sonbol, “On Being a Writer in Syria Today” and her short story “The Noose Boy,” both at ArabLit.We mention the late Syrian writers Khaled Khalifa and Saadallah Wannous. The photo of Alia Malek in Damascus in January 2025 is by Sabir Hasko. You can subscribe to BULAQ on all your favorite podcast networks. You can also follow us on Twitter @bulaqbooks and Instagram @bulaq.books, where we post about upcoming episodes and literary events. Please don’t forget to rate and recommend BULAQ. We are a non-profit, listener-supported program. If you’d like to make a donation you can do so at https://donorbox.org/support-bulaq. BULAQ is a co-production with the podcast platform Sowt. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• Inside The World of Lebanese Comics with Rawand Issa

  Comics artist Rawand Issa joins us to talk about her book Inside the Giant Fish (trans. Amy Chiniara, Maamoul Press); her path from journalism to graphic art; artist groups and collectives across the region; the “new school of Arab comics,” and the challenges of making a living as a comics artist. We also talk about a few other Lebanese graphic novels, particularly Lamia Ziadé’s My Port of Beirut, translated to English by Emma Ramadan, and Lena Merhej’s I Think We’ll Be Calmer in the Next War.Show Notes:You can find several of Rawand’s books available from Maamoul Press: http://maamoulpress.com. Also read Rawand’s “Being Illegal is Unbearable at The Nib, her ماذا نفعل في مواجهة استمرار العنف ضد النساء؟ at Jeem and her untitled work in Chime.And if you missed it, there’s a discussion with Rawand and translator Amy Chiniara about Inside the Giant Fish at ArabLit.Samandal magazine is on Instagram (@samandalcomics), and you can find them at samandal-comics.org.You can buy copies of the magazine Corniche at the Sharjah Art Foundation website.Lab619 (@lab619), Skefkef (@skefkefmag/), and Fanzeen Comics (@fanzeencomics/) are on Instagram, while TokTok has a website, toktokmag.com.Rawand Issa (@rawand.issa_) and Amy Chiniara (@amychiniara) are both on Instagram, too.Lamia Ziadé’s My Port of Beirut, translated to English by Emma Ramadan, from Pluto PressLena Merhej’s We Will Be Calmer in the Next War is available online.Please support BULAQ! You can donate to our fundraiser for the 2023 season at donorbox.org/support-bulaq. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• Give and Take

  In this episode, we talk through some literary news from Algeria and France, discuss two big translations out this fall from towering authors, as well as a new favorite by Maya Abu al-Hayyat. Then we turn to Read Palestine Week and the new collection focused on writers in Gaza, And Still We Write, before a discussion on refusing to work with Israeli publishers that are complicit in the violence against Palestinians. Show notes:Author Kamel Daoud sued over claim he used life of wife’s patient in novel (The Guardian)An excerpt from Aziz Binebine’s own account of Tazmamart, translated by Lulu Norman (WWB). Binebine’s story was the basis for Tahar Ben Jelloun’s This Blinding Absence of Light.Radwa Ashour’s classic Granada Trilogy is finally out in its complete form, in Kay Heikkenen’s translation. You can find the launch discussion at the AUC Press YouTube.The late Elias Khoury’s Children of the Ghetto: Star of the Sea, translated by the late Humphrey Davies, was published in November by Archipelago Books.Maya Abu al-Hayyat’s soon-to-be-classic No One Knows Their Blood Type is out in Hazem Jamjoum’s vibrant translation this fall, from Ohio State University PressYou can get a free digital copy of And Still We Write from the ArabLit storefront, https://arablit.gumroad.com/ Those who want a print copy can get one through Mixam.The letter on refusing to work with Israeli publishers complicit in violence against Palestinians is on the PalFest website.Ahdaf Soueif responds to some criticism of the letter in the London Review of Books. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• Arabic culture and literature in Spain

  Today’s guest, Irene Lozano, is the director of a Spanish cultural institution, Casa Arabe. It received the 2024 Sheikh Zayed Book Award for Cultural Personality of the Year. As we’ll discuss, Casa Arabe is a center of learning, discussion and exchange between Spain and Arab countries. It offers Arabic language classes and a myriad of cultural initiatives and programs, including hosting talks by many prominent Arab writers. In this episode, we discuss the connection between Arabic and Spanish culture, representations of the Arab world in Spain and much more. This episode of the BULAQ podcast is produced in collaboration with the Sheikh Zayed Book Award.The Sheikh Zayed Book Award is one of the Arab world’s most prestigious literary prizes, showcasing the stimulating and ambitious work of writers, translators, researchers, academics and publishers advancing Arab literature and culture around the globe.The Sheikh Zayed Book Award Translation Grant is open all year round, with funding available for fiction titles that have won or been shortlisted for the award. Publishers outside the Arab world are eligible to apply. Find out more on the Sheikh Zayed Book Award website at: zayedaward.ae Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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