BULAQ

BULAQ

Hosted ByUrsula Lindsey & M Lynx Qualey

BULAQ is a podcast about contemporary writing from and about the Middle East and North Africa. We talk about books written in Aleppo, Cairo, Marrakech and beyond. We look at the Arab region through the lens of literature, and we look at literature -- what it does, why it matters, how it relates to society and history and politics -- from the point of view of this part of the world. BULAQ is hosted by Ursula Lindsey and M Lynx Qualey and co-produced by Sowt.

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All Over The Map

April 23, 2018 BULAQ 01:01:08

In this episode, we talk about debates surrounding Western military intervention in Syria; about Arab American writer Randa Jarrar and her Twitter rant against the late Barbara Bush; and about whether there is any alternative to the term “Arab world.” Also Ursula has a squeaky chair.

Show notes

  • At the recent Yale symposium on translation, Samah Salim discussed the relationship between translator, text, and paratext in “Paratext and Political Translation,” with a focus on the introduction, footnotes, and glossary of her translation to Arwa Salih’s The Stillborn. Kamran Rastegar talked about “Translational Infidelity: Paul Bowles’ notes on For Bread Alone.”
  • If you are near Princeton on April 23 at 4:30,do come hear MLQ speakabout “Shifting Local, Regional, and International Pressures on Arabic Literature.”
  • The winner of the International Prize for Arabic Fiction will be announced Tuesday, April 24. MLQ’s prediction of Aziz Mohammed’s The Critical Case of Kas the winner will almost certainly not come true.
  • A Tree Whose Name I Don’t Know, by Golan Haji,tr. Haji & Stephen Watts, was a favorite of MLQ’sthat did not make the recent Best Translated Book Award poetry longlist.
  • Tales of Yusuf Tadros,by Adel Esmat, tr. Mandy McClure, has just been released in English and MLQ was hoping it will receive some prize attention.
  • Leila al-Shami, co-editor of Burning Country: Syrians in Revolution and War,is author of “The Anti-Imperialism of Idiots.”
  • Randa Jarrar is the author of A Map of Home(2008),Him Me Muhammad Ali(2016) and a handful of tweets about the late Barbara Bush’s legacy that were turned into a major trolling campaign and news story. She teaches at Fresno State, where President Joseph Castro has suggested the university is investigatingher tweets, which, he has alleged, “wasn’t just a free speech issue.”
  • In “Can Muslim Feminism Find a Third Way?” Ursula writes about the resignation of Asma Lamrabet, a well-known Moroccan feminist, from her position at the Mohammedan League of Scholars. Lamrabet was also discussed in Episode 2.

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