A man sits outdoors playing the rebab, singing a tale, and people start gathering around him, amused. Such is the typical image of the folk storyteller, in which the author is rarely known and each narrator down the line changes bits and pieces of (...)
The title of “Ghosts With No Maps” - Albawtaka's second collection of translated short stories, published in 2011 - might evoke fear, but its cover design as well the actual stories conjure up sorrow.
On the cover page, a single ghost tries to find (...)
A few centuries back, before the spread of writing, an Egyptian narrator would gather people of all ages around him and tell stories while playing the rebab, a North African string instrument. Stories like “Al-Helalies' Biography,” “Al-Shater Hassan (...)
Since February, publishers and booksellers have been trying to fill the hole left behind by the cancellation of the 43rd annual Cairo International Book Fair, the region's single largest bookselling event.
In its place, several private and public (...)
