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 childhood in his autobiographical novel For Bread Alone – El Khubz El Hafi in Arabic, Le Pain Nu in French. Choukri went on to write much more, chronicling life in post-independence Morocco during the “years of lead,” and the marginalized underclass of Tangier: its barflies, prostitutes, petty criminals, day-to-day survivors. We spoke to scholar and translator Jonas El Busty about the unique subversiveness of Choukri’s work, and why it still resonates so strongly today. We also talked about the reception of Choukri’s work, and the power dynamics embedded in its translation.

SHOW NOTES

Jonas El Busty is a professor of Arabic at Yale University. He has translated Choukri’s short story collection Tales of Tangier, as well as the third installment of Choukri’s autobiography, Faces, and is the editor, alongside Roger Allen, of the scholarly anthology Reading Mohamed Choukri’s Narratives: Hunger in Eden.

For Bread Alone was translated by Paul Bowles, in a process that remains contentious to this day.

Choukri’s writing about some of the famous Western writers – Jean Genet, Tennessee Williams, Paul Bowles – who visited or lived in Tangiers is collected in In Tangier

Ursula recently wrote an article in the New York Review of Books on Choukri, Tangier, colonialism and nostalgia.

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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.