Beirut39 in Cairo
7 pm – 8:30 pm, 26th January
Al Kotob Khan Bookstore, 3/1 Al Lasilky Road,
New Maadi, Cairo 11742 Tel+202 2519 48 07
An evening with Beirut39 writers - Hamdy el Gazzar, Mansoura Ez Eldin, Mohamed Salah Al Azab, Nagat Ali and Youssef Rakha. Hosted by the writer and translator Nael Eltoukhy.
Beirut39 is a project of the Hay Festival which celebrates Beirut as the World Book Capital 2009 and highlights writing by the new generation of authors from the Arab world. Selected by a panel of judges, the 39 writers under the age of 40 will be brought together for a series of events in Beirut in April 2010.
Beirut 39 in Cairo is organised by Literature Across Frontiers, a partner of Hay Festival, on the occasion of the Cairo Book Fair 2010.
About Hay Festival and Beirut39
The Hay Festival has been promoting great writing for 22 years, and attracts over 100,000 visitors annually. Taking place in the town of Hay-on-Wye in Wales, it is one of the most prestigious festivals in the United Kingdom, and has other festivals and projects in the UK, Spain, Colombia and Kenya, and sister festivals in Italy and Brazil.
The Beirut39 project follows on from the extremely successful Bogotá39, which the Hay Festival launched in Bogotá in 2007 and which identified many of the outstanding upcoming Latin American talents.
The judging panel of Beirut39 consisted of Abdo Wazen, Lebanese poet and cultural editor of the international daily Al-Hayat newspaper, Alawiya Sobh, Lebanese writer, Saif Al Rahbi, Omani poet and editor-in-chief of the cultural magazine Nazwa, and Dr. Gaber Asfour, Egyptian literary critic and Honorary President of the judging panel.
The 39 authors will gather in Beirut from 15 to 18 April 2010, and over 30 events will be held all over the city to celebrate this great occasion. Coinciding with the Beirut39 festival running in Beirut, Bloomsbury will publish Beirut39, an anthology of fiction and poetry by the 39 selected authors. The book will be published in English worldwide by Bloomsbury, Bloomsbury USA and Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing, and in Arabic throughout the world by Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing.
Although important new literary awards have increased the profile of Arabic literature in the Arab world and worldwide, the writers that have benefited generally have a long writing career behind them. The Beirut 39 selection process set out to identify and honor writers who are at the start of their careers and who are often struggling to find a wider audience. The 39 writers that have been selected by the judges have justified the decision to focus on new talent. The judges, along with the Hay Festival and its partners Bloomsbury Publishing and Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing, Banipal Magazine for Modern Arab Literature and Literature Across Frontiers, are all excited to be able to provide a platform for so many exciting new voices.
Beirut39 is also supporting Beirut19 which is a cultural project addressed to young students between 12 and 19 years old. This project, organized by iEARN aims to encourage the debate of important issues between young Arab writers, allowing them to share and cultivate their talent.
More information can be found at: www.beirut39.com and beirut39.blogspot.com
About the Authors
Hamdy el Gazzar (1970) gained a graduate degree in Philosophy from the University of Cairo in 1992. After publishing many short stories, he published two novels, of which The Black Magic was published in English by AUC Press in Cairo and awarded the Sawiris Foundation Prize for Egyptian Literature in 2006.
Mansoura Ez Eldin (1976) published her collection Dhaw’a Muhtaz (Shaken Light) in 2001. Her successful debut novel Maryam’s Mazewas was published by the award-winning Merit publishers in 2004, with the English edition published by AUC Press, Cairo. She has worked in Egyptian television, and presently runs the book review section of the renowned Egyptian literary magazine Akhbar al-Adab ('Literature News').
Mohammad Salah Al Azab (1981) published his first novel A Long Cellar with a Low Ceiling Making You Crouch with Suad Al-Sabah Publishers in 2003. That same year, his short story collection Blue in a Sad Way was published by the Higher Council for Culture in Cairo. In 2007, his second novel Repeated Stopping was published by Dar Merit, followed by his third, The Italian's Bed, in 2008. He has won seven literary awards, including the Suad Al-Sabah Award for the Novel, and the Higher Council for Culture’s Award for the Short Story in 1999 and 2004. He also won the Higher Council for Culture Award for the Novel in 2004.
Nagat Ali (1975) earned an MA cum laude for her thesis 'Irony in the Short Stories of Yusef Idris'. She has published three books of poetry and is currently working on her PhD dissertation on 'The narrator in the novels of Nagib Mahfouz'.
Youssef Rakha (1976) is a writer and photographer. He earned a BA in English and Philosophy from Hull University in the UK, and since 1998 has worked as reporter and cultural editor at Al-Ahram Weekly, the Cairo-based English-language newspaper. In 2008-09 he spent a year working as a features writer at Abu Dhabi-based daily The National. His reportage, travel writing, photography, fiction and poetry – written originally in both Arabic and English – have appeared in numerous publications in Cairo, Beirut, London, Berlin, Italy and the US, as well as online. Youssef Rakha has exhibited his photos at the Goethe Institute, Cairo, and has published four books in Arabic: a collection of short stories, Azhar Al-Shams (1999, Dar Sharqiyat), a photo travelogue, Beirut shi mahal (2006, Kitab Amkenah), and two books of travel writing with the Beirut-based Dar Riyad El Rayyes. His poems are soon to appear in a book entitled Kull Amakinina. He is currently working on his first novel.
Nael Eltoukhy (1978) is an Egyptian novelist, literary journalist and translator. He has published one collection of short stories Taghaiurat fania (Artistic changes, 2003), and three novels with Dar Merit, which have received critical acclaim: Leila Anthon, (2005), Babel muftah alalem (Babel, key to the world, 2006) and Al alfen wa setta (Two thousand and six, 2009). Eltoukhy also has an important role in introducing modern Israeli literature to Egyptian and Arab readers through his work in the weekly cultural magazine Akhbar Al Adab and his blog dedicated to Israeli literature in translation Hakaza tahadath Cohen (Thus spoke Cohen) www.hkzathdthcohen.blogspot.com. He has published two books in translation from Hebrew, It remains an occupation, by Ilan Pappe and others, and Death and the Nation by Idith Zertal.
Transcript33 issue: Gaza
Issue 33 of Transcript, the internet review of books and writing in translation published by Literature Across Frontiers, will be dedicated to Gaza, to commemorate the anniversary of the last military conflict in this part of the Middle East which has acquired iconic significance in the eyes of the world due to the humanitarian crisis brought about by the ongoing blockade of the territory by its neighbours. Featuring writing by young authors from Gaza, LAF would like to highlight the creative spirit that can prevail despite so much devastation. www.transcript-review.org