Most recent articles by Marcia Lynx Qualey
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Book review: Hassan Blasim's "God 99"A different sort of sacred
Reading Hassan Blasim's God 99 is an immersive experience of grief and exaltation, anger and disgust, writes Marcia Lynx Qualey. We join the Iraqi narrator as he sits around in seedy Finnish bars and plays slot machines; as he meets refugees and listens to their stories; as he exchanges letters with a dying friend; and as he crosses a kaleidoscopic series of borders
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Meryem Alaoui's "Straight from the Horse’s Mouth"A fiercely enjoyable feminist fairytale
Even though Meryem Alaoui's debut novel "Straight from the Horse's Mouth" centres on a female character working in a field – sex work – that is often, at least in Arabic literature, linked to Morocco, it does so with humour, warmth, and a tumbling, cartwheeling taste for the fantastic. Marcia Lynx Qualey read the book
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Tayeb Salih in translation"Mansi": A rare book in its own way
Widely acknowledged as one of the twentieth century’s great writers – think "Season of Migration to the North" – most of Tayeb Salih's work is surprisingly overlooked. The publication in posthumous translation of "Mansi: A Rare Man in His Own Way" has therefore been met with delight by fans. Marcia Lynx Qualey read the book
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Aziz Binebine's "Tazmamart: Eighteen years in Morocco’s secret prison"We were robbed of our health, our youth and our innocence
Spring 2020 finally saw the publication of Aziz Binebine's Tazmamart memoir in English, translated by Lulu Norman. While it has now been nearly 30 years since the prisoners left their underground cells, Tazmamart remains synonymous both with hidden military prisons and with the terrors of Morocco’s Years of Lead. Marcia Lynx Qualey read the book
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Book review: Sahar Khalifeh's "Passage to the Plaza"It's all a question of timing
When Sahar Khalifeh’s "Passage to the Plaza" appeared in English this year, thirty years after its initial publication, it seemed out of sync – too late and too overshadowed by the coronavirus. Yet perhaps this is just the right time: its locked-in world of curfews and domestic violence speak to 2020 as much as it did to 1990. By Marcia Lynx Qualey
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Book review: Mohamed Elshahed's "Cairo Since 1900"In pursuit of other modernisms
Cairo is often described as an ancient city, full of wonders that are thousands of years old. Yet Mohamed Elshahed persuasively argues, in the newly released "Cairo Since 1900: An Architectural Guide", that the city we see today was largely shaped by twentieth-century concerns. By Marcia Lynx Qualey
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Book review: Tawfiq al-Hakim’s "Return of the Spirit"Awaiting the day of resurrection
In 2019, the long-running Penguin Classics series released its first novel translated from Arabic: Tawfiq al-Hakim’s "Return of the Spirit", conveyed into English by William Hutchins. Al-Hakim wrote his popular novel in Paris in 1927 and published it in Cairo six years later, in 1933. Marcia Lynx Qualey read the book
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Book review: Ismail Fahd Ismail’s "The Old Woman and the River"Hemingway, eat your heart out!
Part desert-island novel, part war story, part ‘Don Quixote’ and part folktale, the last novel by Kuwaiti writer Ismail Fahd Ismail (1940-2018) brings us the Iran-Iraq war through the eyes of a wise old fool. Marcia Lynx Qualey read the book
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Book review: Ibtisam Azem's "The Book of Disappearance"We woke to find them gone
In her latest novel, "The Book of Disappearance", Palestinian author Ibtisam Azem strikes a nerve with a fantastical tale that simultaneously fascinates and moves the reader, presenting the moral drift that can set in when people are confronted with the insoluble. Marcia Lynx Qualey read the book
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Book review: Raja Alem's "Sarab"Gender under siege in Mecca
On 20 November 1979, Islamic militants took over the Grand Mosque in Mecca, the holiest site in Islam. Hundreds were killed in the ensuing two-week siege. This pivotal event in modern Islamic history changed Saudi Arabia. It provides the backdrop for Raja Alem's new novel "Sarab", an extraordinary story of love, faith, violence and gender. By Marcia Lynx Qualey
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Previously unpublished workNaguib Mahfouz' "The Quarter"
Last year, Egyptian critic Mohammed Shoair made an unusual and thrilling announcement: the discovery of never-before-seen stories by Egyptʹs only Nobel laureate for literature, Naguib Mahfouz. Filed in a cardboard box in the possession of Mahfouzʹs daughter, this slender trove of texts has now yielded "The Quarter". By Marcia Lynx Qualey
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Interview with Sudanese writer Rania Mamoun and translator Elisabeth JaquetteFor the sheer pleasure of reading
Rania Mamounʹs 10-story collection – "Thirteen Months of Sunrise" – explores the connections and walls between people and communities. Marcia Lynx Qualey had a three-way discussion with Mamoun, the bookʹs Sudanese author, and its translator, Elisabeth Jaquette, who has rendered the book into vibrant, compelling English