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Empty Cages: A Virtual Book Discussion
Registration
Details
The event will feature award-winning translator Adam Talib, who brought the novel into English with nuance and depth, alongside Karam Youssef, publisher of the Arabic edition and founder of Al Kotob Khan publishing house. The discussion will be moderated by literary critic and editor Marcia Lynx Qualey, founder of ArabLit.
About Empty Cages:
The discovery of an old tin of chocolates, its contents long ago devoured, marks the entry into this intimate story that reaches back through a lifetime of memories in search of self and home, with the relationship between mother and daughter at its core.
Fatma Qandil describes, in startling and immersive prose, growing up in a middle-class Egyptian family, the youngest child and witness to their declining fortunes. Spanning the 1960s to the present day, her happy childhood melts away to reveal the fecklessness of her selfish older brothers, her father’s addiction, her mother’s illness, and the violence and many deaths, both literal and figurative, that she endures.
In both celebration and suffering, and through triumph and disappointment, her voice is unflinching, revealing both a determination to speak the truth and a poetic sensitivity that is disarming. Recipient of the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature, this fictional debut marks the arrival of a stunning new voice.
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Empty Cages is available worldwide through major bookstores and online book retailers. You can also order your copy through one of these links:
Egypt: bit.ly/EmptyCagesEG
Speakers
Adam Talib
Translator of Fadi Azzam’s Sarmada and Khairy Shalaby’s The Hashish Waiter; associate professor at AUC Egypt
AUC Egypt
Adam Talib (Translator) is associate professor in the Department of Arab and Islamic Civilizations at the American University in Cairo, co-editor of the journal Middle Eastern Literatures, and a scholar of classical Arabic poetry. His translation with Katharine Halls of Raja Alem's The Dove's Necklace was awarded the Sheikh Hamad Award. He is also the translator of Khairy Shalaby's The Hashish Waiter (Hoopoe, 2018) and Mekkawi Said's Cairo Swan Song (Hoopoe, 2019.)
Karam Youssef
Publisher
Al Kotob Khan for Publishing
Karam Youssef is an editor, translator, and bookseller. She is the founder of Al Kotob Khan, a publishing house and bookstore located in Cairo's Maadi district. Kotob Khan is also a cultural center that has developed writing workshops that have produced numerous Egyptian writers. Kotob Khan publishes, among others, Mohamed Rabie and Imane Mersal, translated by Actes Sud. She also publishes foreign works in translation, including Franz Kafka, Bruno Latour, Fiston Mwanza Mujila, and Anne Pauly.
Marcia Lynx Qualey
ArabLit and ArabLit Quarterly
Founding editor of ArabLit and ArabLit Quarterly and co-host of the BULAQ podcast. She is the translator of Sonia Nimr's time traveling Thunderbird trilogy and Haya Saleh's YA novel Wild Poppies.