Shortlist Announced for Bait AlGhasham DarArab International Translation Prize Today, the Bait AlGhasham DarArab International Translation Prize announced its 2026 shortlists in three categories: Translators, Authors, and Omani Publications. 

‘A Plot in the Making’ New short fiction by the relentlessly creative Palestinian writer Nasser Rabah.

Books as Breath: Gaza’s Living Story Salah and Abdullah's small bookshop in Nuseirat is a testament to the power of literature. A model of Palestinian endurance.

This is really 🆒

I wish more journals/magazines would have easy options for buying specific back issues

Translating Arabic Polyglossia In this “BETWEEN TWO ARABIC TRANSLATORS” conversation, Yasmeen Hanoosh and Jonathan Wright discuss Wright's start in literary translation, its divergence from the sort of translation he practiced as a journalist, and his ideas about what he calls Arabic polyglossia.

Classic short fiction on the Nakba by Palestinian writer Mahmoud Saif al-Din al-Irani (1914-1974), tr. Amr El-Zawawy. "The Last Bullet": arablit.org/2025/12/16/c...

Classic Short Fiction: al-Irani’s The Last Bullet A classic short story by Palestinian writer Mahmoud Saif al-Din al-Irani in which wealthy men in Amman tell a Palestinian waiter he should be happy.

International Prize for Arabic Fiction Announces 2026’s 16-book Longlist The International Prize for Arabic Fiction today announced 2026's judges and 16-book longlist.

‘…can ideological fantasy be challenged, and perhaps ruptured, through the imaginative power of fiction itself?’

We just sent out the final monthly newsletter for publishing professionals of the year. If you're in publishing (or are publishing-adjacent, or simply interested), you can subscribe here: arablit.substack.com

On ‘Fighting Ideological Fantasy with Fiction’ Several authors who contributed short stories to the collection spoke about their thoughts on the collapse of time, historical continuities and the notion of fighting ideological fantasy with fiction.

My contributions for Arabic Literature: In Translation in 2025. I’m grateful to all those I had the chance to talk with about their work. It means more than you know to me. See you hopefully next year in 2026 ❤️ Thank you as always @Marcia Lynx Qualey and @arablit.bsky.social Part 1

My contributions for Arabic Literature: In Translation in 2025. I’m grateful to all those I had the chance to talk with about their work. It means more than you know to me. See you hopefully next year in 2026 ❤️ Thank you as always @Marcia Lynx Qualey and @arablit.bsky.social Part 2

We're delighted that Kurdish literature is gaining traction in the West, so much so that we now have @henarpress.bsky.social! Here's a great @arablit.bsky.social interview with their publisher, Aryan: arablit.org/2025/09/11/a...

‘I often think that the first dictionary a child in Gaza carries is invisible and heavy. Before they learn the names of distant animals or the months of the year, they learn to point at the sky and say زنانة “drone.”’

So powerful: "If communication is forced to be efficient in order to keep us alive, literature insists on being human in order to keep us whole."

The Vocabulary of the Unthinkable. A powerful piece on how language, communication and thought can also become victims of humanity’s worst impulses.

Shrinking Language, Bursting Memory "Under siege, time is stolen piece by piece, and language shrinks to match the narrow space it is allowed. People abandon long sentences because every additional word must justify the power it consumes, the battery it drains, the risk it takes in that particular…

Today on ArabLit: arablit.org/2025/12/10/l...

Listening to Voices with Hoda Barakat This is part of an interview with the Lebanese author Hoda Barakat that took place on September 30 2025. It has been translated from French and edited for clarity and length. You can also listen to the BULAQ episode based on this interview, in which we also…

If you're a Kurdish writer, or translating a work from a Kurdish writer from any language to English:

In Translation: Blurring the Line Between the Real and the Ludicrous This December 15, Dar Arab is set to publish Belal Fadl’s The Completely True Tales of Um Mimi and Shari The Adulterer, brought to English by first-time translator Osama Hammad. This darkly humorous coming-of-age is set in a…

I appreciate this review of my story The Dragon from Palestine-1. The story itself is set in my family’s village of ‘Ayn Karem, but its history is intertwined with the nearby Deir Yassin, sure if the most notorious Zionist massacre of the Nakba.

'From Saffouryeh’s buried scream to the final, obscene flood, every story in Palestine -1 is placed with surgical intent.' Read @kenyanbibliophile.bsky.social 's wonderful piece on Palestine - 1 in @arablit.bsky.social ❤️ arablit.org/2025/12/04/a...

Thanks for everyone who's bid on the #Creatives4Sudan auction so far. In amazing news, we're at 12k. We have TWO DAYS LEFT though. If everyone places lots of little bids, I think we could get to 15k easy. The money is going to Sudanese-run Emergency Response Rooms. 💗🇸🇩 app.galabid.com/creatives4su...

A story of which there are thousands, yet no less worth sharing. "Her son, Sa’ad, was born just before their exile, shortly after what people called “America’s first invasion” of the capital."

“One language is not enough, and one place is not enough. What I do is close to juggling in a circus, in the most playful but also the most serious sense.” Translators Yasmeen Hanoosh and Mahmoud Hosny Roshdy on language and untranslatability. At ArabLit: buff.ly/YWKX5iA @arablit.bsky.social

A Single, Slow Exorcism: The Nakba Dreamed Backwards From the very first lines of her introduction, editor Basma Ghalayani thrusts us right into a hurried, pulsing Gaza. A passerby asks a Gazan sprinting down the street if something has happened. He answers, “no, but it might.”

A beautiful short story of exile by our own Yasmeen Hanoosh, tr. Ali Issa. "Even language began to fade. The family forgot the words for their old routines and couldn’t replace them with new ones fast enough." arablit.org/2025/12/03/s...

Short Fiction in Translation: ‘Child’s Tears’ by Yasmeen Hanoosh "Even language began to fade. The family forgot the words for their old routines and couldn’t replace them with new ones fast enough."

Nice to see Honey Hunger on the shortlist – by Omani writer, Zahran Alqasmi, tr Marilyn Booth. I covered it in the February @irishtimes.com fiction in translation column. One of the pleasures of doing the column over the past 5 years has been the opportunity to cover Arabic fiction.

Banipal Prize Announces 2025’s 6-book Shortlist Today, the Banipal Trust for Arab Literature announced the six-book shortlist for their 2025 prize: "two comic works, an historical epic, a dystopian fiction, a prison memoir, and an eco-novel from the Gulf."

Forthcoming December 2025: Satire and Contemporary Arab Theater in Translation As publication dates often slip — and new books surface — we try to have a glance at what’s really (to the best of our knowledge) coming in translation from Arabic at the start of each month.

Love the Translated Gems instagram & these are some great #ReadPalestine selections. www.instagram.com/translatedge... Two of these are on the @pubforpalestine list of free e-books for #ReadPalestine week: publishersforpalestine.org

What are you reading for #ReadPalestine Week? Let us know! 📚

This is madness. All books by Normal People and Conversations with Friends author Sally Rooney set to be withdrawn from sale. The 34-year-old Irish author says: “The disappearance of my work from bookshops would mark a truly extreme incursion by the state into the realm of artistic expression.”

Starting Tomorrow: Read Palestine Week As in previous years, the 2025 READ PALESTINE WEEK will run from November 29-December 5.

Sheikh Zayed Book Award Announces Longlists in Literature Category, Three Others The Sheikh Zayed Book Award (SZBA) today announced the longlists in four of the prize's categories for 2026: Literature, Young Author, Children’s Literature, and Editing of Arabic Manuscripts.

Publishers, you should definitely submit: poetrytranslationcentre.submittable.com/submit/33177...

Every blow to my body is a wasted life. arablit.org/2025/11/26/t...

‘The Love’: New Poetry in Translation by Hoda Omran "Marriage is the afterlife / for which we have to cross this life, / leaving behind our homes and pasts, / waiting for justice with a light heart, / where our homes become our graves."

Two New Poems by Olivia Elias nothing to hold on to no more suitcases & nothing left to take away arablit.org/2025/11/25/t...

Please help us out. If you know of a Palestine book club / reading group, let us know. There is: falasteenbookclub.com And of course Llegir Palestina: arablite.org/2025/11/10/l... Where else?

Psst... A quien le apetece leer las memorias de un señor palestino muy bien peinado que, entre otras cosas, luchó en el bando republicano? 👀 🙋🏻‍♀️

Because snarky leftist infighting is always in style!

Two New Poems by Olivia Elias "nothing to hold on to no more suitcases / & nothing left to take away"

Classic Short Fiction: Mahmoud Saif al-Din al-Irani’s ‘My Secret Picture’ Palestinian short-story writer, publisher and translator Mahmoud Saif al-Din al-Irani (1914-1974) writes about love, loyalty, and gender expectations in the early twentieth century.

Palestinian Author Nasser Abu Srour's prison memoir ("written inside the walls of the Israeli prisons where Abu Srour spent 33 years") wins 2025 Prix de La Littérature Arabe. @oliviasnaije.bsky.social for @arablit.bsky.social arablit.org/2025/11/20/p...

Palestinian Author Nasser Abu Srour Wins 2025 Prix de La Littérature Arabe The awards ceremony for the 2025 Prix de la littérature arabe -- held at the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris on November 18 -- was an emotionally charged affair.