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.

Know Your Audience

In which we discuss the fictional underworlds of Rabee Jaber and other Lebanese novelists; and explore Saudi poetry, from a new translation of a famous pre-Islamic collection to the satirical poems of “a grumpy old man” in the Najd in the 18th century. At this time when women are denouncing male abuses of power the world over, we look at two Moroccan female writers who are critical of their societies and who face the question of how their work is received and represented at home and abroad. Asma Lamrabet proposes a progressive feminist re-reading of the Quran; Leila Slimani is an award-winning novelist who has written a book on “sexual misery” in Morocco.

Show notes:

Books mentioned in this podcast:

The Mehlis Report

$9.31

By Rabee Jaber

Confessions

$10.53

By Rabee Jaber

Limbo Beirut (Emerging Voices from the Middle East)

$14.95

By Hilal Chouman

Arabian Satire: Poetry from 18th-Century Najd (Library of Arabic Literature)

$35.00

NYU Press

The Perfect Nanny: A Novel

$12.78

By Leila Slimani

Veil (Object Lessons)

$14.95

By Rafia Zakaria

Woman at Point Zero

$11.65

By Nawal El Saadawi

Memoirs of a Woman Doctor

$11.42

By Nawal El Saadawi

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