On this World Arabic Language Day, we honour the profound legacy and living vibrancy of the Arabic language, carrying with it centuries of poetry, philosophy, science and artistic expression, shaping global culture in ways both visible and quietly enduring. Artwork © Hassan Massoudy

A great episode of The Diverse Bookshelf with Hala Alyan: 'In this conversation, we explore how Hala writes about belonging, grief, and the complicated terrain of family and identity.' podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/h...

Great to see @eliasjahshan.bsky.social and @marwankaabour.bsky.social in @bookmarksbookshop.bsky.social today! 😍

Our Winter Sale is here! Enjoy 50% off all books from 21 – 30 November. Explore stories that inspire, challenge and delight, with proceeds supporting Taawon and The Trussell Trust. Use code WINTER50 at checkout. Exclusions apply. www.saqibooks.com

We are honoured to share Archiving Gaza in the Present, edited by Dina Matar & Venetia Porter. The book reveals how conflict erases lives and memory, even as archiving, art-making and testimony endure. Learn more or order your own copy on our website.

💖🎨 Our November pick: Love is Resistance! Featuring 77 bold art posters that blend creativity, activism & hope. Each piece is a powerful reminder that art is resistance. Explore the full collection & deals at www.pbshop.store @saqibooks.bsky.social

We’re delighted to share 'The Sultan’s Sex Potions: Arab Aphrodisiacs in the Middle Ages', edited and translated by Daniel L. Newman. Discover how thirteenth-century scholars explored the connections between food, medicine and desire. saqibooks.com/books/saqi/the-sultans-sex-potions

Thank you Eric Page from @scenemag.co.uk for this lovely, generous combined review of This Queer Arab Family & This Arab Is Queer 🫶 I guess I can now update my bio with “essential cultural curator” www.scenemag.co.uk/family-matte... (h/t @saqibooks.bsky.social)

Hala Alyan explores exile, motherhood and searching for home in a conversation with @newlinesmag.bsky.social. Her memoir 'I’ll Tell You When I’m Home', published by Saqi, dives into what it means to carry something when others can’t. Listen now: newlinesmag.com/podcast/hala...

We’re looking for a Senior Designer to lead the visual direction of our publishing house – from book covers and interiors to branding and marketing. If you’re passionate about design and storytelling, we’d love to hear from you. Applications close 2 February 2026.

Reminder: WE'RE HIRING! We’re looking for a Sales & Marketing Executive who shares our passion for literature and wants to help us bring our authors to readers everywhere. Applications close 7 November. For more info, head to www.saqibooks.com/careers

Join Saqi author Gilbert Achcar this November for two talks on The Gaza Catastrophe: 📍 SOAS London – 5 Nov | 6pm | Free 📍 Blackwell’s Manchester – 19 Nov | 7pm | £4 / free w/ book Details & tickets via our Linktree → “Events” #GilbertAchcar #SaqiBooks #BookEvents

Saqi Books is at the Frankfurt Book Fair this week! Find us in Hall 6.0, Stand C86 — celebrating independent publishing and showcasing bold new voices from across the Arab world. #FrankfurtBookFair #FBM2025 #SaqiBooks #IndiePublishing

Thrilled to see Leila Aboulela awarded the 2025 PEN Pinter Prize! Her acceptance speech “The Inaccurate Mirror” is powerful and deeply moving. Read it here via Wasafiri: www.wasafiri.org/content/the-... #LeilaAboulela #PENPinterPrize #SaqiBooks

Saqi author Gilbert Achcar joins Savage Minds (@savageminds.substack.com.web.brid.gy) to discuss his book, The Gaza Catastrophe, a vital analysis of the ongoing crisis and its historical roots. 🎧 Listen here → savageminds.substack.com/p/gilbert-ac... #TheGazaCatastrophe #GilbertAchcar #SaqiBooks

“The inner circles of hell are reserved for those who remain neutral at a time of crisis.” In @theobserveruk.bsky.social, @selmadabbagh.bsky.social reflects on moral courage and the cost of silence in the face of atrocity. Read here: observer.co.uk/news/opinion...

In a new interview with Jadaliyya, art historian Hamid Keshmirshekan discusses how his book, Contemporary Iranian Art, reexamines modern and contemporary art beyond Eurocentric frameworks – centering local contexts, histories and voices. 🔗 Full interview via @jadaliyya.bsky.social

Mai Al-Nakib’s acclaimed short story collection The Hidden Light of Objects – winner of the Edinburgh Book Festival’s 1st Book Award – is finally available for US readers. Stories that uncover the memories hidden in everyday things. Ask your local bookstore to order your copy today!

Arab women poets have been writing since the earliest of times, yet for millennia, their diwans (collected poems) were kept in the shadows. 📚💜 This is some of the most beautiful poetry in the world … Timeless.’—Tracy Emin 'Classical Poems by Arab Women' @saqibooks.bsky.social #booksky #books

WE'RE HIRING! We’re looking for a Sales & Marketing Executive who shares our passion for literature and wants to help us bring our authors to readers everywhere. For more info, head to www.saqibooks.com/careers

'The memorial is no longer a monument structure on land but a wearable object, moving with the body from site to site.' -Sama Alshaibi Alshaibi's practice is among 24 contemporary artists featured in Joanna Barakat’s landmark new book, Narrative Threads – out now from Saqi.

'I see my mother and her mother's work in tatreez as a manifestation of identity ... They embroidered, stitched, cut, knitted and clothed our history, memories and future hopes through their handiwork ...' -Sama Alshaibi

Her practice is among 24 contemporary artists featured in Joanna Barakat’s landmark new book, Narrative Threads – out now from Saqi.

From Narrative Threads: Palestinian Embroidery in Contemporary Art Sama Alshaibi reframes the Palestinian woman’s body in her work – not as a passive subject for the colonial lens, but as an active site of memory and resistance.

British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah freed from prison www.theguardian.com/world/2025/s...

From 'Narrative Threads: Palestinian Embroidery in Contemporary Art': Sliman Mansour painted women in embroidered dresses as symbols of homeland — each stitch preserving memory and defiance. His work is featured in Joanna Barakat’s book, Narrative Threads. Follow the link in our bio to learn more.

Saqi is at the Multicultural Book Fair 🎉 Join us tomorrow (Sat 6 Sept 2025) at Conway Hall, London (10am–4.30pm). Over 50 publishers & booksellers, plus talks & readings all day. Come say hi - we’ll have a curated selection of bold, diverse & vital books!

We are proud to announce 'Love is Resistance': 77 posters by artists, writers & musicians worldwide, standing in solidarity with Palestine. Hang them. Carry them. Remember. All proceeds go to @ajyalfoundation, supporting children in Gaza and displaced communities. Follow link in bio for more.

We are thrilled to share the release of 'I’ll Tell You When I’m Home', a lyrical and moving memoir by Hala Alyan. Tender, searching and deeply resonant, this book speaks to the ties that bind us to one another, and to the places we carry with us. Out today via Saqi – follow the link in bio.

On 12 Sept, 6:30pm, join editor Elias Jahshan at Bookmarks Bookshop (London) for an in-conversation event celebrating This Queer Arab Family. The anthology brings together 10 LGBTQ+ Arab voices, re-imagining family, kinship and queer joy. Free tickets — booking required (via Saqi website in Bio)

It’s the final weekend of the Saqi Summer Sale! Take 30% off a curated collection of groundbreaking fiction from the Saqi Bookshelf with code BOOKSHELF30. Sale ends 31 August at 23:59 BST. saqibooks.com/subject/saqi...

Out today: Narrative Threads by Joanna Barakat – a landmark book on Palestinian embroidery reimagined in contemporary art. 24 artists. 200+ works. Essays by leading scholars. A story of memory, resilience & resistance told in stitches. Available now from Saqi. saqibooks.com/books/saqi/n...

We mourn the passing of Egyptian novelist Sonallah Ibrahim (1937–2025), whose fearless, unflinching works shaped generations of Arab literature. His voice endures. We strongly recommend this piece via ArabLit, translated by Emily Drumsta.

London friends: This Queer Arab Family is coming your way! Editor Elias Jahshan will be doing a series of events across the city in September, leading up to launch night at Gay’s the Word on 18 Sept. Full details for each event at our website. Come through and celebrate with us!

Book of the Day: 'Discretion' by Faïza Guène Guène traces the quiet strength of Yamina Taleb – approaching her 70th birthday – navigating family, exile, memory and belonging between Algeria and Paris. A tribute to a fierce, unspoken love that binds generations. #Womenintranslation

“They said, ‘You are only a woman.’ But I refused to believe them.” This #WomenInTranslationMonth we’re celebrating Nawal El Saadawi, a founder of Arab feminist literature. Limited stock – once they’re gone, they’re gone. 30% off this August with code BOOKSHELF30 on saqibooks.co.uk

'Joanna reminds us that cultural preservation is not a luxury—it’s a necessity. Her book is a tribute to the artists who continue to create in displacement and under siege.' Joanna Barakat on the Tatreez Talk podcast! www.buzzsprout.com/2289638/epis...

THE GAZA GENOCIDE IN WORLD-HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE Podcast of my conversation today on This is Hell! @thisishellradio soundcloud.com/this-is-hell...

Thank you @wwborders.bsky.social for highlighting two beautiful Saqi titles this Women in Translation Month. Don't forget - both of these are available for 30% this month on the Saqi website! wordswithoutborders.org/read/article...

GAZA EXPOSES THE BANKRUPTCY OF WESTERN LIBERALISM Interview @jacobinmag.bsky.social jacobin.com/2025/08/gaza...

Ahmed Moor's latest in @theguardian.com www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

My review of @gilbert-achcar.bsky.social The Gaza Catastrophe is now live. A rigorous, dialectical intervention that situates the Gaza genocide within the longue durée of settler-colonialism, imperial complicity, and the collapse of Atlanticist liberalism. #Gaza #SettlerColonialism #BookSky

Over 400 writers, publishers and booksellers — including figures across the literary world — have signed an open letter warning that a proposed ban on protest group Palestine Action represents a serious threat to free expression and civil liberties. @theguardian.com

From our friends at Untold Narratives - two great opportunities to support and contribute to their important work.

Our Summer Sale is HERE! Step into stories that span continents, cultures, and voices. Enjoy 30% off a curated collection of boundary-pushing fiction from the Saqi Bookshelf this August. Shop via saqibooks.com/subject/saqi... #SummerSale #BookSale #SaqiBooks

In this exclusive online essay, Dalia Al-Dujaili writes about the inspiration and research behind her debut, BABLYON, ALBION (@saqibooks.bsky.social), a nature-memoir exploring identity through the land-based mythologies of Britain and Iraq and family memories of migration. Read:

Israeli Rights Groups Break Silence: Genocide in Gaza Acknowledged by B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights. Interview with Radio Islam South Africa on 30 August. soundcloud.com/radioislam/i...

Thrilled to share that The Queer Arab Glossary, edited by Marwan Kaabour, has been selected as a finalist for the 2025 Lambda Literary Awards in the LGBTQ+ Anthology category! A bold and necessary celebration of queer Arab expression, proudly published by Saqi. 🔗 lambdaliterary.org/2025/07/anno...

Starvation in Gaza: 'Western public opinion is starting to find this absolutely intolerable' I was interviewed yesterday evening on @en.france24.com www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZlz... (See my article: "The Mirage of a Palestinian State" posted yesterday)

Book of the Day: Syria Speaks When voices are silenced, art speaks louder. This powerful anthology of Syrian writing and art defies tyranny and reclaims humanity. Courage. Creativity. Resistance. #SyriaSpeaks #ArtAsResistance #VoicesFromSyria