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 -
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 -
A polyphonic Palestinian novel that brings to life dreams of exile and return. -
A writer caught between two lives, two languages, two women -
A journey into Bedouin life and history in northern Syria -
A marginalised Algerian neighbourhood tells one last tale -
Set in a remote mountain village, under the guise of a murder mystery, myths, illusions, and dreams play out among the villagers -
Rimbaud seen through the eyes of his Abyssinian lover -
A vibrant and clever polyphonic tale of twentieth-century Muscat -
A horror mystery that is also an allegory about the writing process -
The tragic life of a female writer in 1960’s Dubai -
A page-turner about betrayal, guilt, and generational trauma -
A Libyan love story that questions ideas of gender and masculinity -
A woman confronts her family’s displacement and dysfunction -
A timely collection of stories about what happens when life suddenly goes wrong, from one of the finest authors of short fiction writing in Arabic today -
Twelve stories about women’s lives in modern Morocco -
A Yazidi woman in northern Iraq fights against ISIS -
Memoir and meta-narrative combine in a unique work of anti-prison literature. -
Palestinian stories on fictional attempts to escape the reality of life under occupation -
An investigation into the life of an Egyptian female writer who committed suicide in 1963