The following selection of books have been recommended and reviewed by the LEILA project’s jury members who are Arabic literature specialists, many of them translators and writers themselves. These recommendations have been chosen with European publishers in mind, who are interested in finding out more about books from the Arab world. When available, contact information for foreign rights (author, agent, or publisher) is provided.
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A tightly paced queer romance that explores how the relationships we build make us who we are
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Multiple themes, such as women’s place in society, and the beauty and depth of Arabic calligraphy are threaded through this novel which takes place during and after Lebanon’s civil war
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A writer caught between two lives, two languages, two women
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A journey into Bedouin life and history in northern Syria
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Rimbaud seen through the eyes of his Abyssinian lover
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Set in a remote mountain village, under the guise of a murder mystery, myths, illusions, and dreams play out among the villagers
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A woman confronts her family’s displacement and dysfunction
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A Libyan love story that questions ideas of gender and masculinity
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A marginalised Algerian neighbourhood tells one last tale
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A horror mystery that is also an allegory about the writing process
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A vibrant and clever polyphonic tale of twentieth-century Muscat
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The tragic life of a female writer in 1960’s Dubai
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A page-turner about betrayal, guilt, and generational trauma
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A Yazidi woman in northern Iraq fights against ISIS
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An investigation into the life of an Egyptian female writer who committed suicide in 1963
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A rich exploration of the ambiguous place of one queer man within the close-knit fabric of working-class Tripolitanian life
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A 30-year-old privileged Egyptian man consumed by his fears and desires, set to the backdrop of the 2011 Egyptian revolution