This week, our Editors-at-Large bring us news of a “literary cartography” of Palestine, the most recent literary fairs and festivals in Egypt, and censorship of Latin American authors in Florida. Read on to learn more!
Carol Khoury, Editor-at-Large for Palestine and the Palestinians, reporting from Palestine
Despite the burgeoning array of literary endeavors in support of Gaza, this dispatch aims to shed light on a profoundly comprehensive initiative. Back in July 2023, when we unveiled our coverage of the podcast entitled “Country of Words,” conceived and orchestrated by Refqa Abu-Remaileh, little did we fathom the vastness of Refqa’s overarching vision under the same title.
“Country or Words: A Transnational Atlas for Palestinian Literature” was inaugurated by Stanford University in the last weeks of 2023. Rooted in the constellation paradigm within literature, this digital-born project aspires to retrace and remap the global narrative of Palestinian literature throughout the twentieth century, traversing the Arab world, Europe, North America, and Latin America. Nestled at the confluence of literary history, periodical studies, and digital humanities, “Country of Words” establishes a networked locus for the data and narrative fragments of a literature in constant motion, harmonizing porous, interrupted, disconnected, and discontinuous fragments into a resilient, open-ended literary chronicle.
In her introduction, Abu-Remaileh explains how “the narrative of Palestinian literature mirrors that of its people—an entire nation in exile, scattered and fragmented across countries and continents. Despite an unprecedented number of the world’s population living as refugees, exiles, or stateless individuals, the logic of the nation-state continues to loom large over literary studies.” The unique case study of Palestinian literary history invites us to “read together” the national and exilic, fostering a transnational comparative perspective. Moreover, “it presents an opportunity to reimagine nonlinear, unconventional literary histories of displacement and movement, unveiling new constellations, networks, trajectories, relationships, and collaborations across multiple literary geographies, illustrating the multilayered nature of these literary histories.”
The website has garnered acclaim within literature studies circles for its adept blending of various digital publishing forms, coupled with an attractive and inviting digital format and visualizations. Refqa Abu-Remaileh’s insightful analysis has transformed the project into “a literary cartography unlike any other,” powerfully “demonstrating the value of digital humanities methods in studying the literatures of the Global South,” with a specific focus on the Palestinian case—simultaneously grounded and transnational, archival and ethnographic.
Ibrahim Fawzy, Editor-at-Large, Reporting from Egypt
The 55th edition of the Cairo International Book Fair (CIBF) kicked off on January 25 and will last until February 6, and is already witnessing an outstanding public turnout. More than one million bibliophiles from around the country flocked in the first days of the CIBF, celebrating this year’s theme: “We Create Knowledge, We Save the World.” The CIBF features Norway as the guest country, an exciting opportunity for Norway to showcase its literature, art, and culture to an Arab audience.
UAE’s favorite literary event, the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature, has just kicked off. Bringing together some of the world’s greatest writers, creators, and thought leaders, this festival welcomes attendees for enlightenment and inspiration with new events and experiences in the form of ‘LitFest After Hours,’ ‘Discovery Talks,’ ‘LitFest Families,’ and ‘Youth Day.’
‘LitFest After Hours’ means the fun doesn’t stop once the sun goes down. From Thursday to Sunday, the doors will be open for a feast of performances, games, activities, and food. Books aside, authors and speakers converge for ‘Discovery Talks,’ a series of free-to-attend “fun” lectures offering intriguing perspectives on topics ranging from the Spiderverse to Chinese mythology to Arabic language and artificial intelligence. The Festival has gathered some of the finest children’s storytellers and illustrators from across the UAE and the world for an action-packed weekend perfect for tiny bookworms. From dragons and superheroes to teen spies and poetry, there’s something for every little reader at ‘LitFest Families.’ University and high school students are invited to participate in important conversations and ignite their imagination at ‘Youth Day,’ a day of specially curated events for curious minds, covering themes from artificial intelligence to literature to business and sustainability, all with an anchoring focus on Arabic culture.
Finally, an announcement that recently brought me joy is that Cairo-born, London-based literary translator Nariman Youssef has been named the British Center for Literary Translation (BCLT) translator-in-residence. Nariman’s residency project will aim to interrogate the language affiliation structures that define L1 and L2 translations and the relevance of those structures to bi-directional translators, or translators working out of their “mother tongue.’ Mabroukulations, Nari!
Miranda Mazariegos, Editor-at-Large, Reporting for Latin America
In Colombia, the renowned Hay Festival recently concluded its latest rendition. With events in three different cities of the South American country—Jericó, Medellín, and Cartagena—the festival brought together over 160 participants from more than 25 countries. Some of the highlighted writers included Irene Solà, Javier Moro, Nona Fernández, Alberto Vergara, Héctor Abad Faciolince, and Amalia Andrade. In addition to big names in the literary world, the festival had presentations and Q&As with Nobel Prize winners Venki Ramakrishnan (Chemistry, 2009) and Juan Manuel Santos (Peace, 2016).
Additionally, the CAF (Development Bank for Latin America and the Caribbean) has formalized a project with the Hay Festival to promote and encourage cultural and creative economies in the region. The program of events will become a part of the Hay Festival in Mexico, Spain, Peru, Panama, and Colombia, according to Forbes Latin America.
In other news, both Chilean writer Isabel Allende and Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez have had their books taken off the shelves of public schools in Florida in response to a recently approved law: HB 1467. Approved by Florida Congress, the law aims to limit pornography in books aimed at young adults but has been widely criticized for how restrictive its interpretations can be. Isabel Allende’s famous The House of the Spirits (1982) and In the Midst of Winter (2017) have both been targeted, as have Chronicles of a Death Foretold (1981) and Love in the Times of Cholera (1985) from Nobel Prize Winner García Márquez. Allende has stated the law is “shameful and dangerous in a democracy,” and warned that these measures would potentially cause contrary effects.
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