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 multiple times. We talked to her about refusing to write and then choosing to write through the genocide; about the importance of mentors; and about creating a community of literary translators in Gaza. Her first full-length collection, 48 kg, is set to appear from Tenement Press in June of this year. (Apologies for the sound quality; Batool spoke to us from one of the rare public venues in which it is possible to access the internet in Gaza; the connection was less than perfect and there is some background noise). Batool’s discussion of her new collection and the meaning of its title is at 16.46 and Batool and Marcia’s reading of the poem Milad/Birth is at 20.24.

Show notes:

You can pre-order Batool’s 48kg from Tenement Press. It’s coming June 15.

Batool also has poems in the new GRIEF issue of ArabLit Quarterly and in Modern Poetry in Translation’s Salam to Gaza.

Batool is one of the authors of Comma Press’s forthcoming Voices of Resistance, set to appear in August 2025.

You can also read work by Heba al-Agha at ArabLit.

You can donate to Batool’s GoFundMe at gofundme.com/f/donate-to-support-batools-cause

You can subscribe to BULAQ wherever you get your podcasts. Follow us on Twitter @bulaqbooks and Instagram @bulaq.books for news and updates. If you’d like to rate or review us, we’d appreciate that. If you’d like to support us as a listener by making a donation you can do so at https://donorbox.org/support-bulaq.

BULAQ is co-produced with the podcast platform Sowt. Go to sowt.com to check out their many other excellent shows in Arabic, on music, literature, media and more.

For all things related to Arabic literature in translation you should visit ArabLit.org, where you can also subscribe to the Arab Lit Quarterly. If you are interested in advertising on BULAQ or sponsoring episodes, please contact us at bulaq@sowt.com.

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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 understanding of the region’s collective history. After he worked with Egyptian psychoanalyst and feminist Afaf Mahfouz to write her autobiography, Mansour began a journey through Arab women’s memoirs set to culminate in his forthcoming podcast, المرآة (The Mirror). One of the many books he discusses with us is Palestinian revolutionary Leila Khaled’s account of her life and militancy, published in 1973, My People Shall Live.

Show notes:

You can find Leila Khaled’s My People Shall Live available free through the Internet Archive.

Afaf Mahfouz’s من الخوف إلى الحرية is available from Kotob Khan.

Links to Khaled Mansour’s work can be found on his website.

Memoirs by Nawal El Saadawi, Arwa Saleh, Huda Shaarawi, Latifa al-Zayyat, Radwa Ashour are available in English translation. A list of these and more is available at arablit.org.

You can subscribe to BULAQ wherever you get your podcasts. Follow us on Twitter @bulaqbooks and Instagram @bulaq.books for news and updates. If you’d like to rate or review us, we’d appreciate that. If you’d like to support us as a listener by making a donation you can do so at https://donorbox.org/support-bulaq.

BULAQ is co-produced with the podcast platform Sowt. Go to sowt.com to check out their many other excellent shows in Arabic, on music, literature, media and more.

For all things related to Arabic literature in translation you should visit ArabLit.org, where you can also subscribe to the Arab Lit Quarterly. If you are interested in advertising on BULAQ or sponsoring episodes, please contact us at bulaq@sowt.com.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Journalist, novelist, and memoirist Omar El Akkad talks about his latest book, One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This – a blend of memoir, social criticism, and moral philosophy. The book creates and shares space for everyone who is full of grief and rage, who cannot be at home in institutions that support or ignore genocide. We discuss the linguistic obfuscations around Gaza, El Akkad’s critique of Western liberalism, and the possibilities for a different future.

Show notes:

You can get One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This from Penguin Random House, where a sample of the audiobook is available, read by Omar El Akkad.

Omar’s first novel, American War, is also available from Penguin Random.

You can subscribe to BULAQ wherever you get your podcasts. Follow us on Twitter @bulaqbooks and Instagram @bulaq.books for news and updates. If you’d like to rate or review us, we’d appreciate that. If you’d like to support us as a listener by making a donation you can do so at https://donorbox.org/support-bulaq.

BULAQ is co-produced with the podcast platform Sowt. Go to sowt.com to check out their many other excellent shows in Arabic, on music, literature, media and more.

For all things related to Arabic literature in translation you should visit ArabLit.org, where you can also subscribe to the Arab Lit Quarterly. If you are interested in advertising on BULAQ or sponsoring episodes, please contact us at bulaq@sowt.com.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.