OUT OF TIME is a short stories collection by author + translator Samira Azzam (1927-1967) who was also a teacher, school director, and radio broadcastOUT OF TIME is a short stories collection by author + translator Samira Azzam (1927-1967) who was also a teacher, school director, and radio broadcaster. Translated from Arabic into English by Ranya Abdelrahman, these stories published (I think) during the 1940s-60s brought me back to the short story as portraiture in a big way. With many no longer than 3/4 pages, Azzam combined brevity and careful detail created intense life panels. Even as I moved on to the next story I imagined the ones before as still active panels, the characters telling another story in exchange for a drink, sitting far from home in the night time dark straining to hear a cherished pet's bark, restless in bed sobbing for water. This was aided by an excellent arrangements of the stories. Read in order one notices how one character's story sounds echoes of others, a similar theme that plays out differently, or a side character who seems to have another life in a different timeline. Abdelrahman's sensitive translation carried over the characters in their memorable mundanity and the world in its turns of poetic beauty.
Every so often there were these emotive, descriptive passages that prompted sharp inhalations of wonder. From "Lest the Arteries Harden": The evening grew dark, and a heavy gray sky pressed down on the city, where small colored lights couldn't hold on to the daylight. Drizzling rain had wrapped them in mist, soaking up their glow until they were as faint as nightlights, glimmering red or green. I loved these stories about death, grief and morning; about love and romance; dreams and desires; hope, betrayal, and ordinary malice; about those who flow with and adapt to changing time and those who stubbornly resist; about those who wields power, those who resist that power, those who achieve some kind of escape and those who don't. As you read on stories of displacement, of scattered families, of repressive surveillance, of so much stolen time, increase. Age, class, gender, just their own individuality inflected everything in ways that broke my heart. (That grandma with her boiled eggs. ...more
Despite the obvious improvement in layout, organisational flow, and integration of art with the text in later issues, I still can't give less than 5 sDespite the obvious improvement in layout, organisational flow, and integration of art with the text in later issues, I still can't give less than 5 stars to this first release because OMG that content.
The foot is on the pedal from the opening story by Stella Gaitano, translated by Anthony Calderbank:
The place: a poor quarter, or, to be more precise, a slum The location: as far from the capital city as the righteous are from Hell The period: the time of flight, the time of war, the war that is either against you or against you The inhabitants: miserable wretches The smell: excrement and cheap booze
It's grim, potent, sobering story in which the inhabitants greet aid workers and police in the same manner. At the end I immediately looked the author up and was happy to learn the South Sudanese writer has a translated release due June 2021 from Dedalus Press.
Thus follows poems, short stories, interviews with a lauded Tunisian poet and an Beirut-born comics artist, a letter to a dead writer from the incomparable Sofia Samatar (light of my life), and more that ground you into a specific space and heralds that "Here we are!" as a "fantasy mightier than mountains".
Many writers have expounded on how a beginning and an end are not singular, distant, binary points but exist and flow into each other. Let ArabLit Quarterly welcome you into its current.
Whatever you may expect whether as someone new to crime fiction, a long time aficionado, or a disinterested observer, tLess gushy update 12 hrs later:
Whatever you may expect whether as someone new to crime fiction, a long time aficionado, or a disinterested observer, this issue will surprise, delight, provoke, and expand your idea of what is crime related literature. More than that, it will push you to consider more closely who has the power to define what a crime is whether through state institutions or as societal norms. From 10th century poetry to present day Scottish translations (and a comic!) I promise you, these words and images will play in your mind long after you're done.
I have so many favourites but today it's "The Evidence Room" for the visually inventive marriage of visuals and text to present a book list. (Or the remix of some devotional literature....I can't choose.)
Getting the print edition is worth it if you can but don't shy away from the e-copy, it's still a visual feast.
Original gush:It's soooo gooood! I'll do a real review later. but right now I'm just so happy because it was so good, not the least because the last murder weapon mentioned in the recipe is exactly how someone could take me out....more
Oh, this issue was glorious. Everything from author interviews to poetry and short fiction, literary playlists, recipes, an essay on Palestinian childOh, this issue was glorious. Everything from author interviews to poetry and short fiction, literary playlists, recipes, an essay on Palestinian children's literature and a pirate glossary! Beautifully envisioned, beautifully designed (obvious even in the PDF edition), "The Sea" was my first issue. It's one I know I'll return to again and again and again....more
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