BULAQ | بولاق
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BULAQ | بولاق
BULAQ is a book-centric podcast co-hosted by Ursula Lindsey (in Amman, Jordan) and M Lynx Qualey (in Rabat, Morocco). It focuses on Arabic literature in translation and is named after the first printing press established in Egypt in 1820. Produced by Sowt. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for...
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Inji Efflatoun, An Egyptian Artist Who Traced Her Own Path
As a teenager in Cairo in the early 1940s, Inji Efflatoun made two great discoveries: art and the Communist Party. Although she was from an elite Fren...
Sonallah Ibrahim, The Egyptian Novelist Who Captured History
The great Egyptian writer Sonallah Ibrahim passed away earlier this month. Several years ago, we discussed his novel Warda – the story of a female fig...
Mohamed Choukri's Brutal Honesty
The Moroccan writer Mohamed Choukri grew up poor and illiterate on the streets of Tangier in the waning years of colonialism. He told the story of his...
A Young Poet in Gaza, Writing in the Shadow of Death
Batool Abu Akleen is a poet and translator in Gaza, Palestine. Her home in Gaza City and her university have been bombed and she has been displaced mu...
Looking In the Mirror: Arab Women’s Memoirs with Khaled Mansour
Author, commentator and human rights advocate Khaled Mansour joins us to talk about how reading Arab women’s memoirs can help one gain a new understan...
‘One Day,’ with Omar El Akkad
Journalist, novelist, and memoirist Omar El Akkad talks about his latest book, One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This – a blend of memoi...
Listening to Syria with Alia Malek
Journalist, author and editor Alia Malek tells us about her recent visit to Damascus and about the anthology of Syrian writing she edited for McSweene...
Inside The World of Lebanese Comics with Rawand Issa
Comics artist Rawand Issa joins us to talk about her book Inside the Giant Fish (trans. Amy Chiniara, Maamoul Press); her path from journalism to grap...
Give and Take
In this episode, we talk through some literary news from Algeria and France, discuss two big translations out this fall from towering authors, as well...
Arabic culture and literature in Spain
Today’s guest, Irene Lozano, is the director of a Spanish cultural institution, Casa Arabe. It received the 2024 Sheikh Zayed Book Award for Cultural...
Flash Fiction Winner Karima Ahdad
Moroccan author Karima Ahdad was the winner of this year’s Arabic Flash Fiction contest run by ArabLit and Komet Kashakeel, which saw more than 900 en...
Reem Bassiouney: Writing Historical Fiction is like “Stringing Pearls”
An epic historical novel set in Fatimid Cairo, Reem Bassiouney’s The Halva-Maker trilogy won the Sheikh Zayed Book Award and is forthcoming in English...
Deena Mohamed’s Graphic Novel Asks: What If Your Wish Came True?
We recorded this interview with Deen in January 2022, just as her debut urban-fantasy trilogy Shubeik Lubeik (“Your Wish is My Command”) was coming ou...
Etel Adnan: “I Write What I See, Paint What I Am”
Art critic and journalist Kaelen Wilson-Goldie joins us for a sweeping look at the life, writing, and art of singular Lebanese author-artist Etel Adna...
This Moment
Majalla 28 is a literary magazine out of Gaza co-producing an issue with ArabLit. We talk about the work by co-editors Mahmoud al-Shaer and Mohamed al...
Ghassan Kanafani: Defiance on Every Page
Ghassan Kanafani is best known for his famous novellas, but he was many things besides a talented writer: a prolific journalist, an insightful critic...
WITH GAZA
This episode features writing from and about Gaza, and explores the imperative to write, between hope and hopelessness, at a time when words both seem...
On Translating Arabic Literature with Robin Moger
We talk to Robin Moger about how he became a translator from Arabic and about what has changed in recent years in the field of Arabic literature and t...
A Crime at the End of the Sahara
Said Khatibi’s detective novel نهاية الصحراء (End of the Sahara) is set in a remote desert city in Algeria in the Fall of 1988, when the country’s Oct...
Remembering Hamdi Abu Golayyel
Egyptian novelist Hamdi Abu Golayyel died last month at the age of 56. In this episode, we remember Hamdi and his one-of-a-kind literary career, telli...
Inside The World of Lebanese Comics with Rawand Issa
Comics artist Rawand Issa joins us to talk about her book Inside the Giant Fish (trans. Amy Chiniara, Maamoul Press); her path from journalism to grap...
Sawad Hussain’s Translation Advice
Translator Sawad Hussain joins us to talk about the challenges of making a living as a translator, the art of co-translation, her focus on Arabic lite...
Looking Back From Iraq
Twenty years after the disastrous and mendacious US invasion of Iraq, we take a look at writing from Iraq: memoirs, poems and blog posts. Shalash the...
Love and its Discontents
We wandered through Arabic poetry and prose to talk about many different forms of literary love: regretful love, unreciprocated love, bad love, vengef...
Should You Turn Down That Literary Award?
It’s literary prize season! When the Sawiris Cultural Awards were announced at the start of 2023, novelist Shady Lewis Botros turned his novel award d...
Getting Your Wish
Egyptian graphic novelist Deena Mohamed talks about her debut urban-fantasy trilogy Shubeik Lubeik (“Your Wish is My Command”). A product of playful s...
Yasmin El-Rifae’s Radius
El-Rifae’s book Radius: A Story of Feminist Revolution tells the story of a movement that mobilized in Egypt to protect female protesters from mob sex...
1001 Nights: A Never Ending Story
In this sponsored episode, we talk to Sheikh Zayed Book Award winner Dr. Muhsin Al-Musawi about his life-long scholarship on the 1001 Nights.
S...
End of Summer Reading
We’re back to talk about books we read over the summer and books we’re looking forward to this fall. Including poetry from Iman Mersal, Hadiya Hussein...
The Interesting Case of a Saudi Novel
In Aziz Muhammad’s The Critical Case of a Man Named K, an unnamed narrator is diagnosed with leukemia. His 40-week journal, shaped by his readings of...
Aftershocks
An earthquake inspired Mohammed Khaïr-Eddine’s Agadir, published in French in 1967 and translated to English by Jake Syersack and Pierre Joris. Part p...
The Book of Travels
We talk to scholar Elias Muhanna about translating a magical, delightful eighteenth-century travelogue. In 1707 Hanna Diyab journeyed from his native...
Stories Just Sprout Inside You
An Interview with Maria Dadouch, who won the Sheikh Zayed Book Award for Children’s Literature this year. Dadouch’s book The Mystery of the Glass ball...
Poems from Palestine
We read from the work of Palestinian poets Maya Abu Al Hayyat, Fady Joudah, Asmaa Azaizeh and Najwan Darwish, who writes: “Death has liberated me/ fro...
87+ Bonus: Book Quiz
Another of our short book-quiz episodes. Send your best guesses to bulaq@sowt.com. The first listener to respond with the right answer will get a book...
‘Kids Take Over!’: On Sonia Nimr’s Thunderbird
Guest hosts Rafael (age 11) and Milo (almost 10) take over this episode of Bulaq to talk about the evil aunts, time-traveling djinn, and scary checkpo...
86+ Bonus: Book Quiz
Another of our short book-quiz episodes. One of our astute listeners has given the answer to last week's question: What Koranic and Biblical story is...
‘Hot Maroc’: An Internet Troll Novel
Translator Alexander E. Elinson joins us to discuss Yassin Adnan's Hot Maroc, a sprawling satire of contemporary Morocco. The novel, set in Marrakesh...
85+ Bonuz: Book Quiz
Another of our short book-quiz episodes. Here we give the answer to a question about an island that was part of a Sultanate spanning Oman and East Afr...
Of Human Bondage: Abdulrazak Gurnah’s ‘Paradise’
Paradise, by 2021 Nobel Prize winner Abdulrazak Gurnah, is the coming-of-age story of Yusuf, a Tanzanian boy sent into debt servitude when his father...