Amir Tag Elsir’s The Grub Hunter

Amir Tag Elsir's The Grub Hunter is a novel about who gets to write novels, and the impact of surveillance on literature. In its opening lines, the protagonist tells us "I’ll write a novel. Yes, I will. This is a really strange idea for a retired police agent like me" (1). This is the story …

Leila Aboulela’s Short Story Collection Elsewhere, Home

Leila Aboulela has been on a book tour recently with her short story collection  Elsewhere, Home which includes some of her earliest stories, like "Coloured Lights," as well as stories written more recently such as "Circle Line." Aboulela read from her new book at a book launch at the Migration Museum on July 4th. She was …

On the Use of English in Arab(ic) Music

Ahdaf Soueif once said that “the use of English by Arab authors is expanding at a faster rate than the use of French." I haven't seen any empirical evidence for this, but it seems likely -- or if not exactly faster than French, than at least at an equal rate. Watching 47soul’s recent release “Raf Etair” …

“On Arab Geographies”: Film Screenings in Abu Dhabi, May 4-6

 ‘On Arab Geographies’  brings together screenings of eight critically-acclaimed contemporary Arab films from across the region, as well as Q&A sessions and panel discussions on filmmaking in the region. The program runs from May 4-6. See the full schedule here. It is curated by Rabih El Khoury, who described it as a "travelogue": “This program aims to be a travelogue …

Leila Aboulela’s The Kindness of Enemies

Leila Aboulela’s The Kindness of Enemies, her fifth novel, explores the complexities of loyalty, religion and  nationalism, and the human yearning for belonging. The story is structured as two parallel narratives, a third person historical narrative set during the 19th century Caucasian war, and a contemporary narrative narrated in first person by Natasha Wilson, a …

Ibrahim El Salahi’s Arab Spring Notebook

Ibrahim El Salahi's "Arab Spring Notebook" is on exhibition at Galerist's project space Studio from Sept. 1 to Oct 3, Daily Sabah reports. His earlier exhibition, at the Tate, was a retrospective, covering the more than five decades of Salahi's career, which highlighted the fact that modernism was not exclusively European.  The "Arab Spring Notebook" is comprised of "46 black, ink …