Books by Trevor Le Gassick and Elizabeth Fernea (translators)
“When you ask Palestinians, ‘Who should I read?’ Sahar Khalifeh is one of the writers they often recommend…Wild Thorns is set in the West Bank, in Nablus, which has been recently occupied. It’s about a man, Usama, who has come back to Palestine from working in the Gulf. He finds that following the conquest of the West Bank, no one is resisting. Lots of his family have got jobs in Israel, and they’re in this period of stasis. He’s very upset about it, and tells them that they need to resist. In his fervour, Usama joins a militant movement, who plan to blow up busses of Palestinians going to work in Israel” Read more...
The Best 20th-Century Arab Novels
Raphael Cormack, Literary Scholar
Interviews where books by Trevor Le Gassick and Elizabeth Fernea (translators) were recommended
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1
The Book of Khalid
by Ameen Rihani -
2
The Open Door
by Latifa al-Zayyat & Marilyn Booth (translator) -
3
Season of Migration to the North
by Tayeb Salih and Denys Johnson-Davies (translator) -
4
The Secret Life of Saeed the Pessoptimist
by Emile Habiby & Trevor LeGassick and Salma Khadra Jayyusi (translators) -
5
Wild Thorns
by Sahar Khalifeh & Trevor Le Gassick and Elizabeth Fernea (translators)
The Best 20th-Century Arab Novels, recommended by Raphael Cormack
The Best 20th-Century Arab Novels, recommended by Raphael Cormack
Whether it’s a tragic novel set in post-indepedence Sudan or picaresque stories about a Palestinian living in Israel after 1948, many of the key Arab novels of the 20th century are available in English. Raphael Cormack, a professor of Arabic studies at Durham University, talks us through five novels from a variety of countries that explore different themes and trends in the evolution of the novel in the Arabic-speaking world.
