The great Egyptian writer Sonallah Ibrahim passed away earlier this month. Several years ago, we discussed his novel Warda – the story of a female fighter in the 1960s and 70s Dhofar rebellion in Oman, and of the Egyptian intellectual who, decades later, tries to solve the mystery of what happened to her. We discuss the vibrant and mysterious female character at the heart of one of Ibrahim’s most ambitious literary projects with scholar, editor and translator Hosam Aboul-ela. As Aboul-ela writes in his introduction to his new translation, Warda is someone who “somehow manages to embody both the historical and the unimaginable.”

Show Notes:

Hosam Aboul-ela is a professor of English at the University of Houston and the editor of the Arabic list at Seagull Books, an award-winning Kolkata-based publisher.

Ibrahim’s first novel, That Smell, and his prison diaries, have been published in a single volume, trans. Robyn Creswell, from New Directions.

Warda is available, in Hosam Abou-ela’s translation, from Yale University Press.

Hosam’s translation of Sonallah Ibrahim’s Stealth is available from New Directions.

Sonallah Ibrahim’s Zaat, in Tony Calderbank’s translation, is, unfortunately, out of print.

Ursula wrote a little something about her meetings, interviews and memories of Ibrahim here: https://www.ursulalindsey.com/blog

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Sonallah Ibrahim, The Egyptian Novelist Who Captured History