RANDA JARRAR

This bears repeating: I am so in love with The Hakawati, by Rabih Alameddine. I’m not finished reading it, but I can say with confidence that this is the novel I have been waiting to read for years. It offers the best of so many worlds: it’s an American novel, an Arab novel, and an Arab American novel; it’s fantasy, history, humor, war-reportage, family saga, sexuality. It’s an absolute gem. Please, please, please, read it. Now.

My world was unwittingly rocked tonight when I hear Rev. Wright utter the following:

“Please run and tell my stuck-on-stupid friends that Arabic is a language — is a language, it is not a religion. Barack HUSSEIN Obama, Barack HUSSEIN Obama, Barack HUSSEIN Obama. There are Arabic-speaking Christians, there Arabic-speaking Jews, Arabic-speaking Muslims and Arabic-speaking atheists [extra points for this!]. Arabic is a language, it is not a religion. Stop trying to scare folks by giving them this Arabic name like it’s some disease.”

I actually cheered the television. I haven’t done that since the first time I saw some Iron Chef episodes back in 2000…

Rabih Alameddine’s new highly acclaimed novel, The Hakawati, is finally out, and I can’t wait to get started on it. Rabih’s other novels, Koolaids and I, the Divine, have been amazing. Check out his new website for more info, and buy your copy now.

This year’s LBF honored the Arab World, which meant there were dozens of panels to attend, with literary rock stars both on- and off-stage. Most of the panels were conducted in Arabic, with wildly gesticulating translators behind plexiglass, their voices snaking into non-Arabic-speaking attendees’ headphones. The most interesting of these panels included the one for nominees of the Arabic Booker, which was moderated by Feisal Darraj, the James Wood of the Arab Lit World. Darraj introduced each writer, and the writers went on to talk about why they write, the impetus behind their nominated novels, and the political implications of their work.

Darraj introduced the entire panel by pinpointing the authors’ common ground: he said the novels nominated this year all refused to worship the past, and instead, looked ahead to a golden future age.

The first introduced was the winner of this year’s prize, Bahaa Taher, who went on to say that he wrote Sunset Oasis because he believes that the purpose of his writing is to show his society its flaws. He said this was a Moliere-ism, and then he paraphrased Chekov, too, saying that he didn’t write sad stories to make people cry, but to force them to change.

The following authors all agreed, disagreed, and celebrated writing in their own ways. May Menassa said that she wrote to live. Jabbour Douaihy said he wrote simply because he liked it. And Khaled Khalifa, the most hilarious of them all, said he wrote because it was the only thing he was good at.

It was an inspiring panel, and later, I meant to ask Darraj how the committee decided on the nominees, but I was thwarted by throngs of readers. It was exciting to see so many people interested in and excited by Arabic fiction.

Donia Jarrar plays Chopin Scherzo No. 3 in C-sharp minor:

I’m back from London and happy to be home. I’m thrilled that I got to meet the literary rock stars I’ve looked up to since college. After a few days of immersion in the world of books, it’s also nice to be back in the real world. Ann Arbor has transitioned into Spring. Yay!

Wow. I am having an amazing time over here. I’m exhausted, but I want to make sure I record all the cool things and people I’ve seen since Sunday, or at least some of them:

Small dogs attacking huge swans at Kensington Gardens

Adania Shibli and loads of other amazing people at a party

A Duchamp/Man Ray/ Picabia exhibit at Tate Modern

Ahmad el-Aidy crossing the street

Baha’a Taher and the other five nominees for the Arabic Booker (more later)

Pink Flamingos

Denis Johnson Davies, who speaks better Egyptian than I do

The Saqi bookstore

Ahdaf Soueif, Mourid Barghouti, Alaa el-Aswany, and hundreds of other writers @ The Roof Gardens

Indian food with Selma Dabbagh

It’s been so fabulous…

My dear friend Hayan Charara has edited an amazing new anthology of poetry titled Inclined to Speak. It just got reviewed in Booklist:

Booklist, April 1, 2008

Make no assumptions. As with all double-named ethnicities, the designation “Arab American” encompasses people of dramatically diverse backgrounds with stories of family, war, exile, lost languages, cherished traditions, forbidden love, and the art of reinventing home and self. An Arab American is an immigrant or American-born; a Muslim, Christian, or Jew; a human being faced with negative stereotypes, made worse in the wake of 9/11. Poet Charara has gathered 160 clarion poems by 39 Arab American poets (each briskly profiled) to create a potent and synergistic anthology that illuminates the slippery elements of identity. Familiar voices–Naomi Shihab Nye, Jack Marshall, and Lawrence Joseph–combine with poets who though new to most readers will be quickly embraced, so direct, lithesome, and affecting are their poems about the solace of nature and the paradoxes of the human condition. Here are poems of Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Egypt, of New York, Detroit, and South Dakota. Born in a Palestinian refugee camp Suheir Hammad reaches for the essence: “you’re either with life, or against it. / affirm life.”

–Donna Seaman

Order a copy now!

I recently found out that my novel will come out in a Hebrew edition with Kinneret-Zmora in Israel. This news came the day after I went to see The Band’s Visit, an Israeli film which really moved me with its meditation on loneliness and tri-lingual love of music– I saw the film as a homage to old Egyptian film.

I’m excited that Hebrew-speaking readers will get a chance to check out the novel. Kinneret -Zmora publishes Etgar Keret, Philip Roth, Saul Bellow, Paul Theroux, Kurt Vonnegut, Gunter Grass, Hanif Kureishi, Zadie Smith, Don Delillo, V.S. Naipaul, Hanif Kureishi and Arundhati Roy, among others.

The Egyptian government recently rejected a large number of liberal, left-leaning, and Muslim Brotherhood candidates from running in parliamentary elections. The ruling party then took 36,400 seats because they were “uncontested.” Protests have been alive and well, and on Sunday workers held a general strike to demand decent living conditions. There have been wage revolts throughout the country, with some protesters dying at the hands of police. My thoughts and prayers are with the people, who have been living (poorly) under a quarter-century dictatorship. Enough is enough.