This summer, Banipal Books published Huda Hamed’s The Cinderellas of Muscat, translated by Chip Rossetti. Here, Tugrul, Huda, and Chip talk through the Cinderella figure, the translation process, and the relationship between the author and translator. Huda Hamed’s answers were translated by Chip Rossetti.

Were I to declare, while situated in the English-speaking world, that I was greatly anticipating the new Zadie Smith novel, no one would bat an eyelid. I would be far less legible if I announced my ex...

In his new book "Syrian Poets and Vernacular Modernity," Daniel Behar looks at a poetic movement that rose from under official state discourse in 1970s Syria. The text examines unknown poetic texts from Syria from the 1970s onward. In this conversation, Behar looks back on the work of his new book and how Monzer al-Masri gradually became its protagonist.

Youssef Rakha revisits Egypt's 2011 uprising and its aftermath in "The Dissenters", the author's first novel written in English. The Arab Spring failed, he argues in this interview, because it was a n...