Photo by Guile Twardowski / Unsplash Malika Moustadraf is a feminist icon in contemporary Moroccan literature, celebrated for her stark interrogation of gender and sexuality in North Africa. “Thi…

Photo by NCinDC / Flickr He said: Why must they destroy and destroy again? Why must they forget my face my gestures my voice? Why must they believe in my absence even as I stand in front of them? Why…

Photo of Tétouan by Jean-Louis Potier / Flickr An early novel, L’Écrivain public (The public scribe) is a surrealistic, semi-autobiographical work that imagines the arc of the author’s l…

Leïla Slimani / Photo courtesy of FrenchCulture.org I have barely read any critical pieces on Leïla Slimani’s novel Chanson douce (Gallimard, 2016), winner of the prestigious Prix Goncourt i…

Translator’s note: Considered Morocco’s greatest living poet, Abdellatif Laâbi wrote this poem in 1975, roughly three years into his decade-long prison sentence, one of many thousan…

Reykjavik, Iceland. Photo by Christine Zenino/Flickr News, Reviews, and Interviews  The Reykjavik International Literary Festival continues this weekend and features authors recently featured or revi…

Mohamed Nedali’s debut novel, Morceaux de choix: les amours d’un apprenti-boucher, was selected by Nobel laureate J. M. G. Le Clézio as the winner of the Prix Grand Atlas in 2005. I recen…