Outdated Browser

For the best experience using our website, we recommend upgrading your browser to a newer version or switching to a supported browser.

More Information

Feminism

Time-Travelers, Fisherwomen, and Sleuths: Arabic Young Adult Literature

By Elisabeth Jaquette

While Arabic publishing has historically focused on literature for adults and young children, recent years have seen an increasing number of titles aimed at a young adult readership.

Mossy rocks at the edge of the coastline in Gaza

Photo by Emad El Byed on Unsplash

Against the Tide

By Taghreed Najjar

A young woman defies societal expectations to become Gaza’s first fisherwoman in this excerpt from Taghreed Najjar’s YA novel Against the Tide.

Translated from Arabic by Elisabeth Jaquette

Beyond Representation: Life Writing by Women in Arabic

By Sawad Hussain & Nariman Youssef

One cannot write about real-life experiences from the place of the “I” without laying claim to a place in the world.

University Student

By Sahar Khalifeh

I was a woman: young, alone, divorced, left without a guardian or virtue, meaning that in society’s eyes I was an easy target.

Translated from Arabic by Sawad Hussain

Urdu Feminist Writing: New Approaches

By Asad Alvi, Amna Chaudhry, Mehak Faisal Khan, Anjuli Fatima Raza Kolb, Geeta Patel & Haider Shahbaz

A dispiriting narrowness has defined canons of Urdu feminist writing from previous decades.

Enemy

By Khalida Hussain

It’s an act of virtue to kill her!

Translated from Urdu by Haider Shahbaz

I Spat Out This Poem

By Yasmeen Hameed

I swallowed fire / And forgot you were an ocean.

Translated from Urdu by Mehr Afshan Farooqi

A yellow rose lying on a stone surface

Photo by Sindy Strife on Unsplash

A New Year for Everyone

By Hijab Imtiaz

So this is what the new year of those who worship this life looks like!

Translated from Urdu by Sascha Akhtar

No, My Veil Is Stained

By Parveen Shakir

Flowers will slip from a torn veil.

Translated from Urdu by Adeeba Shahid Talukder

Sappho’s Ephemera

Her sagacity immortalized even her scattered, sporadic axioms.

Translated from Urdu by Geeta Patel

Red earth has broken apart leaving a cliff-like overhand with exposed tree roots against a forest...

Photo by Jan Canty on Unsplash

Color Thief

By Sara Shagufta

When a man cries / he floods himself in salt tears / and colorfast he drowns

Translated from Urdu by Anjuli Fatima Raza Kolb

We Take the Present in Our Own Hands: Writing by Tunisian Women

By Cécile Oumhani

What do Tunisian women write today?

Game of Ribbons

By Emna Belhaj Yahia

“I don’t like to be lumped in with every woman who wears a scarf on her head.”

Translated from French by Emma Ramadan

from “Clairvoyant in the City of the Blind”

I hope and despair at the same moment

Translated from French by Marilyn Hacker

The Killer

My finger is pressing the trigger.

Translated from Arabic by Alice Guthrie

The Restless

Skin has a memory.

Translated from French by Ros Schwartz

Two Poems

I / am stolen splendor on a darkened street

Translated from Arabic by Kareem James Abu-Zeid

The Stranger and the Old Lady

By Noura Bensaad

In her eyes there smiles the child she once was.

Translated from French by Roland Glasser

Multilingual