In the last few years I’ve come across loads of excellent writing from the Arab world. Partly because of my job, partly because I think there’s a renaissance going on. The Beirut39 collection of work from last year was really interesting, and this week the literary magazine Banipal focusses on Emirati writing. So I spoke to them about it for The National. Based, of course, in the Emirates. One of the amusing and interesting offcuts from the interview was Banipal editor Samuel Shimon’s comment that it’s the translators into English doing much of the editing work, because the idea of the editor doesn’t exist to such an extent in Arab publishing. Anyway, it made me excited to see a finished copy.
Samuel Shimon: “What’s happening here is a reflection of what’s occurring in the rest of the Arab world – a great enthusiasm and interest for fiction, and particularly novels”
