BULAQ | بولاق

Listening to Voices with Hoda Barakat

27 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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 voic...

The Surprisingly Rich Arabic Literary Culture in 17th and 18th Century Southeast Asia

02 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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...

Inji Efflatoun, An Egyptian Artist Who Traced Her Own Path

25 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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 Fren...

Sonallah Ibrahim, The Egyptian Novelist Who Captured History

28 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The great Egyptian writer Sonallah Ibrahim passed away earlier this month. Several years ago, we discussed his novel Warda – the story of a female f...

Mohamed Choukri's Brutal Honesty

26 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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...

A Young Poet in Gaza, Writing in the Shadow of Death

22 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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 mu...

Looking In the Mirror: Arab Women’s Memoirs with Khaled Mansour

10 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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 underst...

‘One Day,’ with Omar El Akkad

06 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Journalist, novelist, and memoirist Omar El Akkad talks about his latest book, One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This – a blend of mem...

Listening to Syria with Alia Malek

06 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Journalist, author and editor Alia Malek tells us about her recent visit to Damascus and about the anthology of Syrian writing she edited for McSweene...

Inside The World of Lebanese Comics with Rawand Issa

02 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

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 grap...

Give and Take

05 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

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...

Arabic culture and literature in Spain

07 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s guest, Irene Lozano, is the director of a Spanish cultural institution, Casa Arabe. It received the 2024 Sheikh Zayed Book Award for Cultura...

Flash Fiction Winner Karima Ahdad

17 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

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 ...

Reem Bassiouney: Writing Historical Fiction is like “Stringing Pearls”

03 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

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 Engli...

Deena Mohamed’s Graphic Novel Asks: What If Your Wish Came True?

15 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

We recorded this interview with Deen in January 2022, just as her debut urban-fantasy trilogy Shubeik Lubeik (“Your Wish is My Command”) was comin...

Etel Adnan: “I Write What I See, Paint What I Am”

04 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

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 Adna...

This Moment

02 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

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...

Ghassan Kanafani: Defiance on Every Page

14 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Ghassan Kanafani is best known for his famous novellas, but he was many things besides a talented writer: a prolific journalist, an insightful critic ...

WITH GAZA

18 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

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...

On Translating Arabic Literature with Robin Moger

12 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

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 t...

A Crime at the End of the Sahara

14 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

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, whe...

Remembering Hamdi Abu Golayyel

13 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

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, telli...

Inside The World of Lebanese Comics with Rawand Issa

15 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

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 grap...

Sawad Hussain’s Translation Advice

11 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

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 lite...

Looking Back From Iraq

06 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

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 ...

Love and its Discontents

02 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

We wandered through Arabic poetry and prose to talk about many different forms of literary love: regretful love, unreciprocated love, bad love, vengef...

Should You Turn Down That Literary Award?

02 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

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...

Getting Your Wish

01 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Egyptian graphic novelist Deena Mohamed talks about her debut urban-fantasy trilogy Shubeik Lubeik (“Your Wish is My Command”). A product of playf...

Yasmin El-Rifae’s Radius

27 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

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 s...

1001 Nights: A Never Ending Story

30 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

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 No...

End of Summer Reading

15 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

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 Hus...

The Interesting Case of a Saudi Novel

25 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

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 o...

Aftershocks

11 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

An earthquake inspired Mohammed Khaïr-Eddine’s Agadir, published in French in 1967 and translated to English by Jake Syersack and Pierre Joris. Par...

The Book of Travels

21 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

We talk to scholar Elias Muhanna about translating a magical, delightful eighteenth-century travelogue. In 1707 Hanna Diyab journeyed from his native ...

Stories Just Sprout Inside You

30 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

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 ...

Poems from Palestine

19 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

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/ f...

87+ Bonus: Book Quiz

09 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Another of our short book-quiz episodes. Send your best guesses to [email protected]. The first listener to respond with the right answer will get a book...

‘Kids Take Over!’: On Sonia Nimr’s Thunderbird

02 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

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 checkpo...

86+ Bonus: Book Quiz

26 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

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 ...

‘Hot Maroc’: An Internet Troll Novel

19 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Translator Alexander E. Elinson joins us to discuss Yassin Adnan's Hot Maroc, a sprawling satire of contemporary Morocco. The novel, set in Marrakesh ...

85+ Bonuz: Book Quiz

12 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

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 Afr...

Of Human Bondage: Abdulrazak Gurnah’s ‘Paradise’

28 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

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 ...

84+ Bonus: Book Quiz

21 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

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 B...

Reading Life Backwards: Omani Novelist Jokha Alharthi

14 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Jokha Alharthi burst to sudden international literary stardom in 2019, when her second novel, Sayyidat al-Qamr (tr. Marilyn Booth as Celestial Bodies)...

83+Bonus: Book Quiz

07 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

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 fro...

Mona Kareem on Translation as Kidnapping

31 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Mona Kareem's essay “Western Poets Kidnap Your Poems and Call Them Translations” lit up debates among translators and poets. In this episo...

82+Bonus: Book Quiz

24 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

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 fro...

Stealing, Drug-dealing, & the Epic of Egyptian Migration

17 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Two very different Egyptian novels – Hamdi Abu Golayyel's The Men Who Swallowed the Sun and Mohamed Kheir's Slipping – both circle around ...

81+ Bonus: Book Quiz

10 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

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 ans...

Naguib Mahfouz's Banned Book

03 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

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?...

80+ Bonus: Book Quiz

24 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

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 ans...

Just Different: Moroccan writer Malika Moustadraf

17 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

She was an outsider, an experimenter, a “rebel realist” and a feminist. You may not have read the short stories of Malika Moustadraf (1969...

Not Yet Defeated

03 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

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 o...

We Read Ramallah

20 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The Book of Ramallah collects stories set in and around Palestine's administrative capital, which, Maya Abu Al-Hayat writes in her introduction, &ldqu...

Midnight in Cairo

06 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

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...

A Thousand And One Dreams

23 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

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 ...

Best of 2021

09 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

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 abou...

The Book of Travels

25 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

We talk to scholar Elias Muhanna about translating a magical, delightful eighteenth-century travelogue. In 1707 Hanna Diyab journeyed from his native ...

So Kill Them Back!

11 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

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 categori...

Poems from Palestine

28 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

We read from the work of Palestinian poets Maya Abu Al Hayyat, Fady Joudah, Asmaa Azaizeh and Najwan Darwish, who writes: “Death has liberated m...

Walking Through Fire: A Look Back at Nawal El Saadawi

14 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The Egyptian feminist writer and doctor Nawal El Saadawi always spoke her mind. Her early books were explosive testimonials, based on her medical prac...

Warda: Diary of a Revolutionary

03 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

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...

Football Writing: The Passion and the Provocation

16 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Football and Arabic literature haven't always had an easy relationship. Football has inspired famous authors like Mahmoud Darwish, and anonymous fans ...

What You May Have Missed

02 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

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 tit...

Iman Mersal: Books You Need To Read & Need to Write

12 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Iman Mersal's work spans poetry and scholarship, personal essay and biography. In 2021, Mersal received the Sheikh Zayed Book Award for her deeply ins...

Impostures: A Rogue’s Many Tales

15 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The Maqamat of Al-Hariri is a story collection from 11th century Iraq that showcases the Arabic language's dazzling, disorienting possibilities. Micha...

Driss Chraibi’s Portrait of an Angry Young Man

01 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

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 ...

A Conversation in Cairo About Making Art Under Pressure

17 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

We recorded this episode in Cairo with author, translator, and Mada Masr culture editor Yasmine Zohdi. We talked about making art in difficult and pre...

Work-Lit Balance

03 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

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 boo...

Karl Sharro Only Takes Soccer Seriously

20 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

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...

The Interesting Case of a Saudi Novel

06 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

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 ...

Aftershocks

22 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

An earthquake inspired Mohammed Khaïr-Eddine's Agadir, published in French in 1967 and translated to English by Jake Syersack and Pierre Joris. P...

Women In Love and In Lust

08 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

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....

We Read Ramallah

25 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The Book of Ramallah collects stories set in and around Palestine's administrative capital, which, Maya Abu Al-Hayat writes in her introduction, &ldqu...

Reading and Writing Behind Bars

11 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

“Writer, criminal, and ex-journalist” Ahmed Naji released two books in 2020: the speculative fiction novel (والنمور لحجرتي) A...

Midnight in Cairo

24 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

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 Eg...

Sex & Second Chances

10 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Emma Ramadan translated two Moroccan novels in 2020: A Country for Dying by Abdellah Taïa & Straight from the Horse's Mouth by Meryem Alaoui....

Cairo Modern: The Unstable City

27 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

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 w...

Getting Away With Murder

14 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

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...

Kitchen Talk

30 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode we explore the relationship between cooking and writing. With special guest Anny Gaul, we talk about the origins of national dishes su...

A Thousand And One Dreams

17 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

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 ...

Paranormal

03 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The adaptation of the Egyptian writer Ahmed Khaled Tawfik's hugely popular horror/fantasy series into the Netflix show Paranormal has excited and in s...

Book Club: Season of Migration to the North

18 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

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 t...

Love and Silence: Rediscovering Enayat El Zayat

05 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

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 Pillar of Salt

21 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

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 th...

Revolt Against the Sun

08 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

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...

Trailer: Fall 2020 Season of BULAQ

24 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Ursula Lindsey and Marcia Lynx Qualey discuss books from across the Arab region and new translations from Arabic.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com...

The Cat Is Out of The Bag

24 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

This episode looks at the Fall 2020 issue of ArabLit Quarterly, which focuses on cats: in contemporary Arabic stories, in erotic poetry, in medieval s...

Ten out of Ten

11 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

 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 t...

Women in Translation: The Frightened Ones

26 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

 We talk about the Syrian writer Dima Wannous' haunting novel The Frightened Ones, translated by Elisabeth Jacquette. It's a book about fear, pan...

Women in Translation: Reporting While Arab and Female

12 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

 We talk about a collection of essays by female journalists from the region. Guilt, anger, recklessness, determination. There are many different ...

Talking Shit

29 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

 Beirut writer Lina Mounzer reads from her essay “Waste Away: Notes on Beirut's Broken Sewage System.” We discuss the current situati...

Murder, They Wrote

16 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

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...

Widows, Conmen and Crimes

02 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

 We discuss a book that tells the stories of women who rallied to ISIS; one that focuses on a Franco-Moroccan family grappling with the end of co...

Tazmamart

18 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

 We talk about Morocco's most infamous secret prison; about fathers and sons; about survivors who tell their stories and writers who borrow (or s...

Kitchen Talk

04 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

 In this episode we explore the relationship between cooking and writing. With special guest Anny Gaul, we talk about the origins of national dis...

Locked-In Lit

21 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

We talk about a few new books — ones that provide a welcome escape, and ones that seem particularly daunting — and about how hard it is to...

Cold Trail

07 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

 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 long wandering...

Tight Spaces

22 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

للاستماع إلى بودكاست بعد أمس http://aj.audio/click We discuss an acclaimed novel set during the first Palestinian Intifad...

Sentence to Hope

09 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

للاستماع إلى بودكاست بعد أمس http://aj.audio/click We spend most of this episode discussing the work and life of the Syri...