The full post can be read on ArabLit’s website (published on April 24th, 2018). Below is an excerpt:
Nasrallah — born in a Palestinian refugee camp in Jordan — is no stranger to the IPAF, having been on four of the prize’s 11 longlists. His Ottoman-era historical novel Time of White Horses made the 2009 shortlist, and has since been translated by Nancy Roberts. Nasrallah’s longlisted The Lanterns of the King of Galilee was also translated by Roberts.

Published by Asharq Al-Awsat, April 2nd, 2018
Barakat to Asharq Al-Awsat “I am comfortable with the frequency of my writing, and am not tempted by promotion”
In her latest novel, The Night Post, Hoda Barakat adopts a new “trick” to immerse the reader in a game of five letters, written by five different senders as confessions to people they will never see again.

Published by World Literature Today, September 2017
Sinan Antoon’s novel, Baghdad Eucharist, translated by Maia Tabet, originally published in Arabic by Al-Kamel Publishers and shortlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2013, is a visceral yet poetic novel about the Iraqi diaspora.

Published by Asian Review of Books, May 13, 2017
Baghdad is not a city readily associated with Christianity. Nevertheless, a small (and shrinking) community lives there. This brief but resonant novel describes the discrimination and abuse they suffer for their faith as well as offering an important insight into how intolerance (of any religion or lifestyle, not just Christianity) can escalate into violence and even war.

Published by The National, July 20th, 2017
Jabbour Douaihy’s The American Quarter is a strange and complex look into a Tripoli neighbourhood. In American Neighborhood, Lebanese writer Jabbour Douaihy narrates the intersection of three lives in an impoverished Tripoli district in northern Lebanon.

Published by The Jordan Times, February 11th, 2018
Tripoli, past and present
Lebanese novelist Jabbour Douaihy situates his story in Tripoli, in the north of his country. Though it is Lebanon’s second largest city and filled with noteworthy ancient architecture, particularly from the Mamluk period, Tripoli seldom gets the attention it merits.