Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing
New English Language Fiction 2014
www.bqfp.com.qa Welcome / Marhaba
We are delighted to introduce Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing’s English language literary list for 2014. This year we have the privilege of publishing some of the best writers in the Middle East in English translations, including established luminaries such as Jordan’s Amjad Nasser and Egypt’s Radwa Ashour, and exciting new voices such as Kuwaiti short story writer Mai Al-Nakib.
Within these pages are stories of exile, of love lost and found, of the brutality of war and the magic of everyday objects. In these beautifully written (and beautifully translated) works, English-language readers will discover worlds that are at once familiar and breathtakingly original. Enjoy!
Bianca Saporiti, Bloomsbury Operations Director, BQF and Arend Küster, Acting Director, BQF
About Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation
Established in October 2008 and headquartered in Doha, BQF has four main aims: to publish books of excellence and originality in English and Arabic; to promote the love of reading and writing and help establish a vibrant literary culture in Qatar and the Middle East; to cultivate new literary talent, especially in Arabic, through events and creative writing workshops; and to achieve the transfer of knowledge and publishing related skills into Qatar through regular internships, secondments and training courses in key areas of publishing, and mentoring of aspiring Qatari publishers. For more information on BQF’s activities please refer to our website:
www.bqfp.com.qa
For more details on the titles in this catalogue, please contact Sophia Blackwell, Marketing and Publicity Manager: [email protected] Throwing Sparks
(Tarmi bi Sharar – English edition) Abdo Khal
Translated from the Arabic by Maïa Tabet and Michael K. Scott
»» Winner of the 2010 International Prize for Arabic Fiction »» Author is a hard-hitting and controversial novelist »» Banned in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Jordan
‘Khal writes vividly and poetically ... [a] powerful and deeply troubling book’ Sholto Byrnes, National
‘Shines a light on life at the bottom of the heap, in Saudi’s often forgotten villages … Casts an unflinching eye on PRICE: £12.99/QR75 those seduced by the glamour of palace politics’ Guardian FORMAT: HARDBACK ISBN: 9789992179093 When an opulent palace is built on the Jeddah waterfront EPUB ISBN: 9789992194287 near his poverty-stricken neighbourhood, ambitious Tariq PUB DATE: MARCH sees a way out of his life of petty crime. He stares longingly TRANSLATION RIGHTS: BQF at the huge gates, dreaming of the luxuries beyond. TERRITORY: WORLD EXCEPT But dream quickly turns to nightmare. The Palace is ruled by ARABIC, FRENCH, AND ITALIAN an enigmatic Master whose influence in the city is as wide as it is wicked.
Thirty years later, Tariq feels trapped. In between punishing the Master’s enemies through unspeakable acts, falling for Maram, the Master’s beautiful mistress, and resisting his brother’s pleas to return home, he realises that he has become no more than a slave - and that there is only one way out.
Born in Saudi Arabia in 1962, Abdo Khal studied political science and began his career as a preacher before becoming a primary school teacher. Throwing Sparks is his first novel to be published in English.
Maïa Tabet was born in Beirut and was commended for the Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize. Michael K. Scott teaches Arabic and translates the works of Elias Khoury, among others. The Hidden Light of Objects Mai Al-Nakib
»» A sophisticated, cosmopolitan voice from the Middle East
‘The old world and the new. The strife in The Gulf, once peaceful and reflective. East and West, Arabic and English, the poetry of the heart, the eye of the hawk; all these elements produce the lustrous pearls of Mai Al-Nakib’s short stories’ Hanan al-Shaykh, author of One Thousand and One Nights
A young girl, renamed Amerika in honour of the US role in the liberation of Kuwait, finds her name has become a barometer of her country’s growing hostility towards the West. A self- PRICE: £9.99/QR60 conscious Palestinian teenager is drawn into a botched suicide FORMAT: HARDBACK bombing by two belligerent classmates. A middle-aged man ISBN: 9789992195413 dying from cancer looks back on his extramarital affairs and the EPUB ISBN: 9789927101144 abiding forgiveness of his wife. A Kuwaiti woman returns to her PUB DATE: APRIL family after being held captive in Iraq for a decade. TRANSLATION RIGHTS: BQF TERRITORY: WORLD The headlines tell of war, unrest and religious clashes. But if you look beyond them you may see life in the Middle East as it is really lived – adolescent love, yearnings for independence, the fragility of marriage, pain of the most quotidian kind.
Mai Al-Nakib’s luminous stories carefully unveil the lives of ordinary people in the Middle East – and the power of ordinary objects to hold extraordinary memories.
Mai Al-Nakib was born in Kuwait in 1970. She holds a PhD in English literature from Brown University in the USA and teaches postcolonial studies and comparative literature at Kuwait University. This is her first collection of short stories. She lives in Kuwait and is currently writing her first novel. Land of No Rain
(Haythu La Tasqatul Amtar – English edition) Amjad Nasser
Translated from the Arabic by Jonathan Wright
»» The debut novel of a well-known and much-loved poet and memoirist
‘One of the best books I’ve read in a long time. Nasser is an inspired poet and this work takes the precision and economy of his language into prose narrative for the first time. Gentle, sad, hopeful – a poet writing prose at his mature best’ Ahdaf Soueif, Guardian PRICE: £12.99/QR80 FORMAT: PAPERBACK After twenty years in exile a man returns to Hamiya, a ISBN: 9789992194584 fictional Arab country run by military commanders who treat EPUB ISBN: 9789927101175 power as a personal possession to be handed down from PUB DATE: APRIL one generation to the next. Forced abroad for taking part TRANSLATION RIGHTS: BQF in a failed assassination attempt on the military ruler known TERRITORY: WORLD as The Grandson, the man is interrogated by security police on his return and later encounters family, childhood friends, former comrades and his first love. But most importantly he grapples with his own self, the person he left behind. Land of No Rain is a complex and mysterious story of the hardship of exile and the difficulty of return.
Amjad Nasser, a Jordanian poet born in 1955, has written numerous volumes of poetry and several travel memoirs. He has worked for newspapers in Beirut and Cyprus and since 1987 he has lived in London, where he is managing editor and cultural editor of Al-Quds Al-Arabi. Land of No Rain is his first novel.
Jonathan Wright is a British literary translator who recently received the Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize. His translations include Taxi by Khaled AlKhamissi, also published by BQF. The Arch and the Butterfly
(Al Qaws wal Farasha – English edition) Mohammed Achaari
Translated from the Arabic by Aida Bamia
»» Joint winner of the prestigious International Prize for Arabic Fiction 2011 »» An important Moroccan writer and internationally known political figure
Set just outside the ancient city of Marrakech, this is a moving novel of identity, extremism, culture and generational change. Youssef, the son of a cross-cultural marriage between his Moroccan father and German-born mother, is caught up in a PRICE: £12.99/QR70 mesh of family tragedies that reflect the changing world he FORMAT: PAPERBACK lives in. He learns that his only son Yasin, whom he believed to ISBN: 9789992179055 be successfully pursuing an education at a prestigious college EPUB ISBN: 9789992195451 in Paris, has been killed in Afghanistan fighting with the Islamist PUB DATE: MAY resistance. TRANSLATION RIGHTS: BQF TERRITORY: WORLD EXCLUDING ARABIC, With his world already shattered, and finding himself SPANISH AND ITALIAN abandoned by his wife for another man, Youssef questions everything including his own values and identity.
Born in 1951, Mohammed Achaari is a Moroccan poet, short story writer, journalist, former Minister of Culture in Morocco and head of the Union of Moroccan Writers. His work has been translated into English, French, Spanish, Russian and Dutch. The Arch and the Butterfly is his second novel.
Aida Bamia is professor emeritus of Arabic language and literature at the University of Florida in Gainesville. As well as being a literary translator she is the author of The Graying of the Raven, and was the editor of Al-’Arabbiyah. Blue Lorries
(Farag – English edition) Radwa Ashour
Translated from the Arabic by Barbara Romaine
»» A clear voice through years of Egyptian political struggle
‘Every work by Radwa Ashour is a masterclass in new narrative forms’ Al Ahram
‘An inspirational writer’ Independent
Nada is no stranger to protest. She is five years old when her French Photo Credit: Diaa Saleh mother takes her to visit her Egyptian father, a political activist, in prison. When he returns home five years later, a changed man, their PRICE: £12.99/QR70 little family begins to fracture. Through her teenage years Nada is FORMAT: HARDBACK surrounded by the language of protest – ‘anarchism’, ‘Trotskyism’, ISBN: 9789992194485 ‘communism’ – and, one summer in Paris, she discovers the ’68 EPUB ISBN: 9789927101250 movement and her first love. PUB DATE: MAY TRANSLATION RIGHTS: BQF Through student sit-ins, imprisonments, passionate arguments, TERRITORY: WORLD EXCLUDING ARABIC accidental alliances, fallen friends, joys and regrets, Nada’s story grows into the story of Egypt’s many celebrated activists. Moving, uplifting and deeply human, Radwa Ashour’s masterpiece is the story of Egypt in the second half of the twentieth century and a paean to all those who choose a life of activism and quiet defiance.
Radwa Ashour is an Egyptian writer and scholar born in 1946. She is the author of numerous novels, short story collections and academic works. A long-time professor of English literature at Ain Shams University in Cairo, she holds a PhD in African-American literature from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
Barbara Romaine has previously translated three novels, including two by Radwa Ashour as well as Bahaa Taher’s Aunt Safiyya and the Monastery. In 2011 her translation of Ashour’s novel Spectres was runner-up in the competition for the Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize. June Rain
(Matar Hozayran – English edition) Jabbour Douaihy
Translated from the Arabic by Paula Haydar
»» Shortlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction 2008 »» One of Lebanon’s leading writers »» Excellent reviews from the international press
‘Douaihy offers a highly original portrait, sometimes poignant and sometimes sarcastic, a Middle East still to discover’ La Stampa Photo Credit: Samih Zaatar
‘Jabbour Douaihy builds a powerful and complex novel with several voices, artfully weaving childhood memories and an PRICE: £12.99/QR70 adult’s investigation’ Le Canard Enchainé FORMAT: PAPERBACK ISBN: 9789992142783 16 June 1957. A shoot-out in a village church in northern EPUB ISBN: 9789927101311 Lebanon leaves two dozen people dead. PUB DATE: JUNE TRANSLATION RIGHTS: RAYA AGENCY In the aftermath of the massacre, the town is rent in two: the Al- TERRITORY: UK ONLY Ramis in the north and their rivals the Al-Samaeenis in the south.
At the center of the portrait is Eliyya, who, twenty years after emigrating to the US, returns to the village to learn about the father who was shot through the heart in the massacre, the father he never knew.
Jabbour Douaihy was born in 1949 in Zgharta, Lebanon. He is a professor of French literature at the Lebanese University in Beirut and has published numerous novels and story collections, some of which have been translated into English. He lives in Lebanon.
Paula Haydar has translated several novels by leading Lebanese novelists including Sahar Khalifeh and Elias Khoury. She won the Arkansas Arabic Translation Prize for her translation of Elias Khoury’s The Kingdom of Strangers. Days of Ignorance
(Jahiliyya – English edition) Laila Aljohani
Translated from the Arabic by Nancy Roberts
»» A novel about love, honour, hypocrisy and war that flings wide a window onto Medina, Saudi Arabia
A young man, Malek, has been brutally attacked for being of the Photo Credit: Nawal Aljohani ‘wrong’ race. His lover, Leen, waits by his bedside and reflects on their relationship and her life as an unmarried, childless woman. All around her are voices of judgment and concern; in the twenty-first century it is still unforgivable, and dangerous, for a Saudi woman to enter into a relationship with a black man. In the distance US planes hover over Iraq, primed to embark on PRICE: £9.99/QR70 yet another senseless conflict. FORMAT: HARDBACK ISBN: 9789992195192 Malek’s attacker was Leen’s brother. EPUB ISBN: 9789927101281 PUB DATE: JULY Laila Aljohani is the author of Always Love Will Remain (1995), TRANSLATION RIGHTS: BQF which won second place at the Abha Prize for Culture, The TERRITORY: WORLD EXCLUDING Barren Paradise (1998), Days of Ignorance (2007) and 40 Fi ARABIC Ma’ani Ina Akbar (2009). Days of Ignorance is the first of her novels to be translated into English.
Nancy Roberts’ literary translations include Beirut ’75 by Ghada Samman, for which she won the Arkansas Arabic Translation Award, and The Man from Bashmour by Salwa Bakr, for which she received a commendation from the judges of the 2008 Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize. Beirut, Beirut
(Beirut, Beirut – English edition) Sonallah Ibrahim
Translated from the Arabic by Chip Rossetti
»» A captivating story of a little-known war with devastating human consequences
November 7, 1980. An Egyptian writer has chosen the wrong time to come to Beirut in search of a publisher for his controversial new book. Men with machine guns are on Photo Credit: Ahmed Mourad every street corner.
When the writer meets an old friend from his revolutionary PRICE: £12.99/QR70 student days, he is introduced to two fascinating women: FORMAT: PAPERBACK idealistic film-maker Antoinette and Lamia, the seductive ISBN: 9789992194522 wife of his would-be publisher. EPUB ISBN: 9789927101342 PUB DATE: SEPTEMBER Based on the author’s real-life experience of the civil war in TRANSLATION RIGHTS: BQF Lebanon, Beirut, Beirut is an exploration of how, in the midst TERRITORY: WORLD EXCLUDING ARABIC of chaos and violence, it is impossible to see where anyone truly stands.
Sonallah Ibrahim was born in 1937. After studying at Cairo University, he worked as a journalist until he was arrested and imprisoned in 1959 for his political activities. Since his debut prison novel, That Smell, he has been a full-time writer. Several of his books have been translated into English.
Chip Rossetti is an editor and the translator of the novels Saint Theresa and Sleeping with Strangers by Bahaa Abdelmegid. Traces
(Nithar Al Mahw – English edition) Gamal Alghitany
Translated from the Arabic by Nader Uthman
»» Written by one of Egypt’s greatest living writers »» Winner of the Egyptian National Prize for Literature
‘One of the most significant writers in contemporary Egyptian literature today’ Andre Clavel, Lire (France)
An examination of what remains of memories after forgetting has done its work, by one of Egypt’s greatest living writers. PRICE: £12.99/QR70 How do we keep track of the places and people we loved? FORMAT: PAPERBACK Can we avert the passage of time? Reaching his sixties, ISBN: 9789992194522 the narrator decides to write down the fragments of his EPUB ISBN: 9789927101205 memories and explore the traces they have left behind. PUB DATE: OCTOBER Taking us back through the neighbourhoods of old Cairo, TRANSLATION RIGHTS: BQF Traces describes scenes from the narrator’s childhood, his TERRITORY: WORLD EXCLUDING ARABIC encounters and travels, and the awakening of his senses.
Gamal Alghitany was born in 1945 and trained as a tapestry- maker in Cairo. He wrote his first work when he was sixteen and became a war reporter at the age of twenty-three. He has written thirteen novels and six collections of short stories.
Nader Uthman is a scholar and translator of modern Arabic literature. He teaches Arabic language, literature and culture at New York University. Where Pigeons Don’t Fly
(Alhamam La Yatiru Fi Buraydah – English edition) Yousef Al-Mohaimeed
Translated from the Arabic by Robin Moger
»» Winner of the Chebbi Prize, one of the most respected literary awards in the Arab world »» A bestseller in Arabic; exploring the taboos surrounding relationships in a conservative society
‘A rising star in international literature’ Annie Proulx, author of Brokeback Mountain
Where Pigeons Don’t Fly follows the story of Fahd, a young boy PRICE: £12.99/QR70 growing up in Saudi Arabia. Fahd’s childhood is overshadowed FORMAT: HARDBACK by his father’s involvement in the attack on the Grand Mosque in ISBN: 9789992179161 Mecca. Now an artist and critic, the adult Fahd finds that, both EPUB ISBN: 9789927101373 in work and in love, he is at loggerheads with repressive cultural PUB DATE: NOVEMBER and religious norms. When he and his girlfriend are detained by TRANSLATION RIGHTS: BQF the ‘virtue’ police, Fahd contemplates a life of self-imposed exile TERRITORY: WORLD in a remote corner of Britain, rather than remaining somewhere he doesn’t feel he belongs.
Yousef Al-Mohaimeed is an award-winning writer and journalist. He has published several novels and short story collections in Arabic, and his work has been translated into English, Russian, Spanish and German.
Robin Moger is the translator of A Dog With No Tail by Hamdi Abu Golayyel, winner of the 2008 Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature, and one of the translators of the anthology Beirut39: New Writing from the Arab World. Golda Slept Here Suad Amiry
»» A shocking and beautiful portrait of Palestinian life under Israeli rule by the author of Nothing to Lose But Your Life: An 18-Hour Journey with Murad and Sharon and My Mother-in-Law »» Suad Amiry is the 2014 winner of the Premio Nonino
‘A refreshingly funny account of the absurdities of everyday life in occupied territories’ Observer on Sharon and My Photo Credit: Samah Daragmeh Mother-in-Law
‘A deeply personal story, told with such lightness of touch, PRICE: £9.99/QR70 with so much humour and compassion’ Esther Freud on FORMAT: HARDBACK Nothing to Lose But Your Life ISBN: EPUB ISBN: Suad Amiry traces the lives of individual members of PUB DATE: NOVEMBER Palestinian families and, through them, the histories of both TRANSLATION RIGHTS: BQF Palestine and the émigré Palestinian community in other TERRITORY: countries of the Middle East.
Golda Slept Here juxtaposes serial bombardments and personal tragedies; evokes the sights and smells of Palestinian architecture and food; and weaves for us the tapestry that is the Palestinian reality, caught between official histories and private memories. Through poetry and prose, monologue and dialogue, we glimpse the lost Palestinian landscape, obscured by the silent battle between remembering and forgetting.
Suad Amiry is the founder and director of the Riwaq Center for Architectural Conservation in Ramallah. After growing up between Amman, Damascus, Beirut and Cairo, she went on to study architecture in Beirut, Michigan and Edinburgh. Since then she has lived in Ramallah. She is the author of Sharon and My Mother-in-Law and Nothing to Lose But Your Life: An 18-Hour Journey with Murad. BQF Contact List and International Sales
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