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Contributor

Jonathan Smolin

Contributor

Jonathan Smolin

Jonathan Smolin teaches Arabic and Middle Eastern studies at Dartmouth College. He is the author of Moroccan Noir: Police, Crime, and Politics in Popular Culture (Indiana University Press, 2013) and the translator of several Arabic novels, including Youssef Fadel’s A Rare Blue Bird Flies with Me (Hoopoe, 2016). He lives in Norwich, Vermont.

Articles by Jonathan Smolin

Bahaa and Shareef Escape to New York

By Ezzedine Fishere

They didn’t get any satisfaction from coming out.

Translated from Arabic by Jonathan Smolin

Multilingual

Bled Dry

By Abdelilah Hamdouchi

They were under arrest because they didn't have enough money to do business with the cops.

Translated from Arabic by Jonathan Smolin

from “A Nation behind Bars”

By Khalid Oways

TRANSLATOR’S NOTE: The author is Sudanese. This excerpt is a translation from Watanun Khalfa al-Qudban (Beirut: Dar Al Saqi, 2002, ch. 17, pp. 46-52). It takes place in the early to mid-1990s, a…

Translated from Arabic by Jonathan Smolin

from “The Last Wager: A Detective Novel”

By Abdelilah Hamdouchi

Abdelilah Hamdouchi's The Last Wager takes place in modern-day Casablanca. Othman is an unemployed thirty-two-year-old Moroccan married to a wealthy seventy-three-year-old French woman, Sofia, who…

Translated from Arabic by Jonathan Smolin

from The White Fly

By Abdelilah Hamdouchi

The White Fly (2000) is the first Arabic detective novel translated into English. Set in contemporary Tangier, Morocco, the narrative follows Detective Laafrit as he investigates the case of four dead…

Translated from Arabic by Jonathan Smolin