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 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 -
Memoir and meta-narrative combine in a unique work of anti-prison literature. -
The true story of an illegal immigrant’s harrowing journey -
An investigation into the life of an Egyptian female writer who committed suicide in 1963 -
A rich exploration of the ambiguous place of one queer man within the close-knit fabric of working-class Tripolitanian life -
A postmodernist retelling of Kafka’s The Metamorphosis set in present-day Morocco -
A 30-year-old privileged Egyptian man consumed by his fears and desires, set to the backdrop of the 2011 Egyptian revolution -
Palestinian stories on fictional attempts to escape the reality of life under occupation -
A Moroccan family copes with unexpected tragedy. -
Exploring Cairo through love stories that failed by a hair -
An intergenerational magical-realist story about war and conflict in Sudan -
An exquisite scream of clever rage at the contemporary moment -
The impact of conflict on everyday life in Libya -
A Tunisian girl in Baghdad of the 1980s -
A timely portrayal of human life under late capitalism, in a world simmering with lust and fear -
A personal and political journey of a Tunisian militant -
Muslim and Jewish Algerians fighting against French occupation -
An ironic cookbook and serious socio-political commentary
