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 more information.
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12 نوفمبر 2026 · 1:01:35
The independent, progressive news site Mada Masr has been a pillar of free speech, investigating journalism, and unique writing and thinking in Egypt since its creation in 2013.…
29 أكتوبر 2026 · 57:03
What has changed in the last twenty years in Arabic literature, publishing and translation? What has not? The sponsor of this episode, the Sheikh Zayed Book Award, was founded in…
16 يوليو 2026 · 1:02:17
Marcia is publishing the first English translation of early 20th century woman of letters and feminist icon May Ziadhe; Ursula has been working on a review of the award-winning…
11 يونيو 2026 · 54:48
Ibtihal Reda Mahmood, editor and translator of the anthology Snow in Amman: An Anthology of Short Stories from Jordan joins us to talk both about the Jordanian literary landscape…
23 أبريل 2026 · 1:15:39
The Key is a new online publication dedicated to covering Palestine as “the core issue at the heart of the modern world.” We’re joined by its editor-in-chief, Sara Yasin, former…
5 مارس 2026 · 1:06:48
The Egyptian feminist writer and doctor Nawal El Saadawi always spoke her mind. Her early books were explosive testimonials, based on her medical practice and personal…
12 فبراير 2026 · 1:05:37
In this episode from a few years ago, we wandered through Arabic poetry and prose and talked about many different forms of literary love: regretful love, unreciprocated love, bad…
29 يناير 2026 · 1:05:59
Egypt’s January 25 revolution was 15 years ago. Since then many of its young leaders have been persecuted and the history of what happened distorted or denied. After spending…
27 نوفمبر 2025 · 51:37
Ursula traveled to Paris to talk to Lebanese novelist Hoda Barakat about writing in Arabic while living at a distance from home; listening to the voices of characters who are…
2 نوفمبر 2025 · 55:41
In this sponsored episode, we talk to Sheikh Zayed Book Award winner Andrew Peacock about his work on Arabic literary culture in southeast Asia in the seventeenth and eighteenth…
25 سبتمبر 2025 · 52:06
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 French-speaking background,…
28 أغسطس 2025 · 1:09:38
The great Egyptian writer Sonallah Ibrahim passed away earlier this month. Several years ago, we discussed his novel Warda – the story of a female fighter in the 1960s and 70s…
26 يونيو 2025 · 1:23:28
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 childhood in his…
22 مايو 2025 · 47:42
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 multiple times. We talked to…
10 أبريل 2025 · 58:53
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 understanding of the region’s…
6 مارس 2025 · 53:34
Journalist, novelist, and memoirist Omar El Akkad talks about his latest book, One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This – a blend of memoir, social criticism, and…
6 فبراير 2025 · 53:51
Journalist, author and editor Alia Malek tells us about her recent visit to Damascus and about the anthology of Syrian writing she edited for McSweeneys. Aftershocks was released…
2 يناير 2025 · 1:00:31
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 graphic art; artist groups and…
5 ديسمبر 2024 · 1:00:40
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 as a new favorite by Maya…
7 نوفمبر 2024 · 39:19
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 Personality of the Year. As…
17 أكتوبر 2024 · 47:07
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 entries from around the world.…
3 أكتوبر 2024 · 42:08
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. The book explores the…
15 أغسطس 2024 · 1:02:35
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 out in English. This original…
4 يوليو 2024 · 1:07:13
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 Adnan (1925-2021). Kaelin…
2 مايو 2024 · 40:57
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-Zaqzouq and read excerpts…
14 مارس 2024 · 1:08:04
Ghassan Kanafani is best known for his famous novellas, but he was many things besides a talented writer: a prolific journalist, an insightful critic and editor, a heterodox…
18 يناير 2024 · 1:08:41
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 to count enormously and to…
12 أكتوبر 2023 · 53:14
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 translation and what has…
14 سبتمبر 2023 · 46:54
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 October Riots are about to…
13 يوليو 2023 · 1:19:27
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, telling the story of Egypt’s…
15 يونيو 2023 · 1:00:31
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 graphic art; artist groups and…
11 مايو 2023 · 58:06
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 literature from Africa and the…
6 أبريل 2023 · 56:35
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 Iraqi is a collection of…
2 مارس 2023 · 1:07:15
We wandered through Arabic poetry and prose to talk about many different forms of literary love: regretful love, unreciprocated love, bad love, vengeful love, liberating love,…
2 فبراير 2023 · 58:28
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 down, launching a storm of…
1 ديسمبر 2022 · 1:02:35
Egyptian graphic novelist Deena Mohamed talks about her debut urban-fantasy trilogy Shubeik Lubeik (“Your Wish is My Command”). A product of playful self-translation, it’s coming…
27 أكتوبر 2022 · 1:10:53
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 sexual attacks in 2012 and…
30 سبتمبر 2022 · 50:15
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. Show Notes: This podcast is produced…
15 سبتمبر 2022 · 46:21
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’s novel about looking for a…
25 أغسطس 2022 · 54:15
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 Kafka, Thomas Mann, Ernest…
11 أغسطس 2022 · 55:55
An earthquake inspired Mohammed Khaïr-Eddine’s Agadir, published in French in 1967 and translated to English by Jake Syersack and Pierre Joris. Part playtext, part novel, part…
21 يوليو 2022 · 1:02:51
We talk to scholar Elias Muhanna about translating a magical, delightful eighteenth-century travelogue. In 1707 Hanna Diyab journeyed from his native Aleppo as translator to a…
30 يونيو 2022 · 43:53
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 features two children…
19 يونيو 2022 · 58:41
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/ from the shackles of our small…
9 يونيو 2022 · 3:13
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 in the mail! Hosted on…
2 يونيو 2022 · 29:53
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 checkpoints in the first book of…
26 مايو 2022 · 2:10
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 a reference for Abdulrazak…
19 مايو 2022 · 58:22
Translator Alexander E. Elinson joins us to discuss Yassin Adnan's Hot Maroc, a sprawling satire of contemporary Morocco. The novel, set in Marrakesh and online, follows the…
12 مايو 2022 · 1:58
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 Africa, and that features in…
28 أبريل 2022 · 57:11
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 can't pay back an Arab…
21 أبريل 2022 · 3:10
Another of our short book-quiz episodes. Here we give the answer to a question about an Arab poet who emigrated to the US and translated some of the Beat poets. And we ask a…
14 أبريل 2022 · 49:11
Jokha Alharthi burst to sudden international literary stardom in 2019, when her second novel, Sayyidat al-Qamr (tr. Marilyn Booth as Celestial Bodies ), won the International…
7 أبريل 2022 · 2:37
All this season, we will be doing short book-quiz episodes with prizes donated by ten distinguished publishers. We give the answer to the question from Episode 82: “The Men Who…
31 مارس 2022 · 1:07:13
Mona Kareem's essay “Western Poets Kidnap Your Poems and Call Them Translations” lit up debates among translators and poets. In this episode Kareem talks about poetry, the power…
24 مارس 2022 · 2:27
All this season, we will be doing short book-quiz episodes with prizes donated by ten distinguished publishers. We give the answer to the question from Episode 81, “Naguib…
17 مارس 2022 · 59:11
Two very different Egyptian novels – Hamdi Abu Golayyel's The Men Who Swallowed the Sun and Mohamed Kheir's Slipping – both circle around issues of migration in different ways.…
10 مارس 2022 · 4:15
All this season, we will be doing short book-quiz episodes with prizes donated by ten distinguished publishers. In this bonus episode, we give the answer to the question from…
3 مارس 2022 · 1:02:15
What was so controversial about Children of the Alley, leading to it being banned for years in Egypt and to an attempt on the author's life? How and when was it published,…
24 فبراير 2022 · 4:33
All this season, we will be doing short book-quiz episodes with prizes donated by ten distinguished publishers. In this bonus episode, we give the answer to the question from…
17 فبراير 2022 · 54:30
She was an outsider, an experimenter, a “rebel realist” and a feminist. You may not have read the short stories of Malika Moustadraf (1969-2006), since her work fell out of print…
3 فبراير 2022 · 1:07:16
Egypt's January 25 revolution was 11 years ago. Since then many of its young leaders have been persecuted and the history of what happened distorted or denied. We look at writing…
20 يناير 2022 · 57:09
The Book of Ramallah collects stories set in and around Palestine's administrative capital, which, Maya Abu Al-Hayat writes in her introduction, “represents this mirage, this…
6 يناير 2022 · 1:05:26
Raph Cormack is author of Midnight in Cairo: The Divas of Egypt's Roaring ‘20s , which chronicles the lives of many of Egypt's biggest stars of the early twentieth century. Show…
23 ديسمبر 2021 · 54:59
An abbreviated version of The Nights will be coming out in Fall 2021, in Seale's translation for W. W. Norton. The fuller Nights is currently set for 2023. You can follow the…
9 ديسمبر 2021 · 1:09:38
For our end-of-year book list, we made up our own categories -- from “best poet I hadn't heard of before” ” to “best book about cannibalism” to “best book that lived up to the…
25 نوفمبر 2021 · 1:02:51
We talk to scholar Elias Muhanna about translating a magical, delightful eighteenth-century travelogue. In 1707 Hanna Diyab journeyed from his native Aleppo as translator to a…
11 نوفمبر 2021 · 1:03:51
We look at new writing from Syria and about the experiences of Syrian refugees, including Ramy Al-Asheq's Ever Since I Did Not Die , a book he categorizes not as poetry or prose…
28 أكتوبر 2021 · 58:41
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/ from the shackles of our small…
14 أكتوبر 2021 · 1:05:12
The Egyptian feminist writer and doctor Nawal El Saadawi always spoke her mind. Her early books were explosive testimonials, based on her medical practice and personal…
3 أكتوبر 2021 · 1:07:13
Sonallah Ibrahim's Warda is the story of a female fighter in the 1960s and 70s Dhofar rebellion in Oman, and of the Egyptian intellectual who, decades later, tries to solve the…
16 سبتمبر 2021 · 51:36
Football and Arabic literature haven't always had an easy relationship. Football has inspired famous authors like Mahmoud Darwish, and anonymous fans who have composed powerful…
2 سبتمبر 2021 · 1:02:45
We're back! Catch up on everything you missed over the summer, including Women in Translation Month and a Fall reading list full of intriguing new titles. Show Notes: In our…
12 أغسطس 2021 · 1:03:55
Iman Mersal's work spans poetry and scholarship, personal essay and biography. In 2021, Mersal received the Sheikh Zayed Book Award for her deeply insightful prose work In the…
15 يوليو 2021 · 1:03:39
The Maqamat of Al-Hariri is a story collection from 11th century Iraq that showcases the Arabic language's dazzling, disorienting possibilities. Michael Cooperson received the…
1 يوليو 2021 · 56:42
This episode focuses on Driss Chraibi's The Simple Past (Le Passé Simple) , a Moroccan novel about a very angry young man in revolt against his father's tyranny and the…
17 يونيو 2021 · 1:02:53
We recorded this episode in Cairo with author, translator, and Mada Masr culture editor Yasmine Zohdi. We talked about making art in difficult and precarious times; how to…
3 يونيو 2021 · 1:05:19
This week we talk about how MLQ's latest passion project, the Arab Lit Quarterly , and the ups and downs of making a living (sort of) writing about books. Hosted on Acast. See…
20 مايو 2021 · 1:12:42
We talk to humorist Karl Sharro about the origins story of his Twitter alter-ego Karl ReMarks and about finding the ideal online nemesis. Marcia takes issue with a new book…
6 مايو 2021 · 54:15
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 Kafka, Thomas Mann, Ernest…
22 أبريل 2021 · 55:55
An earthquake inspired Mohammed Khaïr-Eddine's Agadir, published in French in 1967 and translated to English by Jake Syersack and Pierre Joris. Part playtext, part novel, part…
8 أبريل 2021 · 1:08:19
We Wrote in Symbols: Love and Lust by Arab Women Writers brings together fiction and poetry by more than 70 women over a span of more than 1500 years. Editor Selma Dabbagh talks…
25 مارس 2021 · 56:03
The Book of Ramallah collects stories set in and around Palestine's administrative capital, which, Maya Abu Al-Hayat writes in her introduction, “represents this mirage, this…
11 مارس 2021 · 1:11:12
“Writer, criminal, and ex-journalist” Ahmed Naji released two books in 2020: the speculative fiction novel ( والنمور لحجرتي ) And the Tigers to My Room (2020) and the nonfiction…
24 فبراير 2021 · 1:04:46
Raph Cormack is author of the soon-to-be-released Midnight in Cairo: The Divas of Egypt's Roaring ‘20s , which chronicles the lives of many of Egypt's biggest stars of the early…
10 فبراير 2021 · 59:48
Emma Ramadan translated two Moroccan novels in 2020: A Country for Dying by Abdellah Taïa & Straight from the Horse's Mouth by Meryem Alaoui. They are very different books but…
27 يناير 2021 · 1:07:48
We take a look at a new book about the architecture of twentieth century Cairo, and discuss the Egyptian capital's past, present and future, and the way writers have shaped our…
14 يناير 2021 · 1:00:45
Our guest this week was once told there were no Algerian crime novels. She begs to differ. We discuss the many examples of the genre and its evolution in Algeria, Morocco and…
30 ديسمبر 2020 · 1:01:29
In this episode we explore the relationship between cooking and writing. With special guest Anny Gaul, we talk about the origins of national dishes such as couscous and koshary;…
17 ديسمبر 2020 · 53:38
Poet, artist and translator Yasmine Seale is at work on a fresh translation of the Thousand and One Nights . Show Notes: An abbreviated version of The Nights will be coming out…
3 ديسمبر 2020 · 1:02:34
The adaptation of the Egyptian writer Ahmed Khaled Tawfik's hugely popular horror/fantasy series into the Netflix show Paranormal has excited and in some cases disappointed the…
18 نوفمبر 2020 · 1:04:16
By listener demand, we re-read Season of Migration to the North , the 1966 classic by the Sudanese novelist Tayeb Salih. Its unnamed narrator returns to his village “on a bend of…
5 نوفمبر 2020 · 49:16
We're re-running one of our favorite episodes. In 1993, the Egyptian poet and writer Iman Mersal picked up an unknown novel by a forgotten writer from the 60s. And so began her…
21 أكتوبر 2020 · 1:00:42
We discuss the classic 1953 novel by the Jewish Tunisian Francophone writer Albert Memmi, who died this year. This sharp and beautiful book is many things: a coming of age story,…
8 أكتوبر 2020 · 1:13:46
Nazik al-Mala'ika was an Iraqi woman poet of great influence and renown through the 1940s, 50s and 60s. She pioneered new poetic forms and re-invented a heritage of feminine,…
24 سبتمبر 2020 · 0:56
Ursula Lindsey and Marcia Lynx Qualey discuss books from across the Arab region and new translations from Arabic. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.…
24 سبتمبر 2020 · 55:00
This episode looks at the Fall 2020 issue of ArabLit Quarterly , which focuses on cats: in contemporary Arabic stories, in erotic poetry, in medieval scholarship, in Egyptian…
11 سبتمبر 2020 · 57:26
We only took a one month break but there are so many new (and a few old) books to talk about! We put together a list of ten titles of interest to start out the Fall with. 1) Etel…
26 أغسطس 2020 · 37:03
We talk about the Syrian writer Dima Wannous' haunting novel The Frightened Ones, translated by Elisabeth Jacquette. It's a book about fear, panic and anxiety -- in one's body…
12 أغسطس 2020 · 40:10
We talk about a collection of essays by female journalists from the region. Guilt, anger, recklessness, determination. There are many different and movingly honest takes on…
29 يوليو 2020 · 52:45
Beirut writer Lina Mounzer reads from her essay “Waste Away: Notes on Beirut's Broken Sewage System.” We discuss the current situation in Lebanon and literature that looks at the…
استمع في تطبيق Podli 🎧
تابع برامجك المفضلة، واستمع دون اتصال وفي السيارة عبر CarPlay و Android Auto، وأكمل دائمًا من حيث توقفت. جرّبه مجانًا.
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