by Jo Glanville
RIMA HASSOUNEH (translator) is an editor, translator, writer and teacher. Her translations include the short stories of the Palestinian writer Ala Hlehel. She currently lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
NANCY HAWKER (translator) is reading languages, cultures and politics of the Middle East at the School of Oriental and African Studies, with special focus on Israel and the Palestinian Territories.
RANDA JARRAR (contributor and translator) was born in Chicago to a Palestinian father and an Egyptian mother, and grew up in Kuwait and Egypt. She moved to the US after the first Gulf War, and now lives with her child in Austin, Texas. Her fiction has appeared in Eyeshot, Sex and the Umma, Ploughshares, and several anthologies. She has received the Million Writers Award for best short story, and a notable nod in the 2005 Best American Nonrequired Reading. Her translations have appeared in Words Without Borders and elsewhere. Her first novel will be published in 2007.
JEAN SAID MAKDISI was born in Jerusalem and grew up in Cairo. She completed her studies in the United States, and settled in Beirut with her family in 1972. She taught English and Humanities at the Beirut University College (presently the Lebanese American University) from 1972–95. She has worked with the women’s movement in Lebanon, and written on Arab women and feminism, literature and the cinema. She is the author of Beirut Fragments: A War Memoir (New York: Persea Books, 1990) which was selected as a New York Times Notable Book, 1990, and Teta, Mother and Me: An Arab Woman’s Memoir (London: Saqi Books, 2005 and NY: Norton, 2006).
CHRISTINA PHILLIPS (translator) has a first class BA in Arabic from Oxford University and an MA in Applied Linguistics and Translation from SOAS. She has completed a PhD thesis on intertextuality and experimentalism in the later novels of Naguib Mahfouz. She has lived and studied in Jordan and Egypt and translated a number of short stories and novel excerpts. She is a regular contributor to the journal Banipal.
NAOMI SHIHAB NYE’S books include You & Yours (Isabella Gardner Award for 2005), Going Going, A Maze Me: Poems for Girls, 19 Varieties of Gazelle; Poems of the Middle East, a National Book Award finalist in 2002, Come with Me: Poems for a Journey, Fuel, Red Suitcase, Words Under the Words, and Habibi, a novel for teenagers, which won six Best Book awards. She has edited seven anthologies of poetry for young readers. A visiting writer for many years all over the world, she has been a Lannan Fellow, a Guggenheim Fellow and a Library of Congress Witter Bynner Fellow. Nye lives in San Antonio, Texas, with her husband, photographer Michael Nye, and their son.
NUHA SAMARA (1944–92) was a journalist, editor and writer. Born in Tulkarem, she lived in Beirut, Qatar, London, France and Cyprus. Her writing was much influenced by her experience of the Lebanese civil war. ‘The Tables Outlived Amin’ is the title story of her collection of short stories (1981). Her book In the Swamp City was published in 1973.
SAMAH AL-SHAYKH was born in Saudi Arabia in 1980 and now lives in Gaza. Her fiction, poetry, criticism and essays have appeared in a number of magazines and newspapers. She studied at the Islamic University, Gaza. At the Hospital was first published in Arabic in the journal Masharef.
ADANIA SHIBLI was born in Palestine in 1974. Her work has been published in literary magazines in both the Arab world and Europe. She has twice been awarded the Young Writer’s Award (Palestine) by the A. M. Qattan Foundation for her novels Masaas (Touching, al-Adab 2002), translated into French as Reflets sur un mur blanc (Actes-Sud 2004) and Kulluna Ba’eed Bethat al Miqdar ‘an al Hub (We Are All Equally Far From Love: al-Adab 2004).
RAEDA TAHA was born in Jerusalem and currently works and lives in Ramallah. She specialised in Speech Communication and Journalism at George Mason University, Virginia and worked as a press officer for President Yasser Arafat for seven years. Her book Ali, a biography of her father, Ali Taha, was published in 2002. She writes short stories and heads the Board of Directors at Khalil Al Sakakini Cultural Centre. She is also the vice-chairwoman of the Board of Directors for Riwaq (Centre for Architectural Conservation).
BASIMA TAKROURI was born in Jerusalem in 1982. She has a BA in English from Bethlehem University and is currently studying for a Masters in Sociology at Bir Zeit University. She has published a novel, Seat of the Absent (2001), a children’s book, Salma’s Plan, which she also illustrated (2002), and Diaries under the Occupation (2004), which was published in France in 2006.
NIBAL THAWABTEH lectures in journalism at Birzeit University and writes a weekly column for al-Ayyam newspaper. She has also produced, written and directed numerous radio and television programmes. She is a member of Beit Fajjar Municipal Council.
Acknowledgements
I could not have put this anthology together without the enthusiasm and generosity of the writers and translators. There are also many others who have given me invaluable advice and help: Nancy Hawker and Mai Ghoussoub at Telegram for reading and commenting on so many manuscripts; Hanan al-Shaykh, Samir El-youssef, Elias Nasrallah, Mahmoud Abu Hashhash at the Qattan Foundation, Ramallah; Siham Daoud, editor of Masharef; Zeina B. Ghandour, Ghassan Zaqtan, Fatin Farhat at the Sakakini Centre, Ramallah; Malu Halasa, Daphna Baram, Reem Kelani, Robert Irwin and Nadine Touma. As well as contributing to the anthology, Selma Dabbagh, Huzama Habayeb, Nathalie Handal, Adania Shibli and Nibal Thawabteh gave me help beyond the call of artistic duty.
JO GLANVILLE is Director of English PEN and former award-winning editor of Index on Censorship. As a BBC current affairs producer, she made a number of documentaries focusing on the Middle East and has also written widely on the region.
‘Sixteen authors have contributed to Qissat. Most of their concerns are very much those of a people under siege: refugee camps and border crossings; the fear of checkpoints; the terror of gunfire. But there are intimate, domestic stories too: of sweet, strong araq and bittersweet love; filial duty and the potent forces of nostalgia … a humane, richly rewarding read … no two women share the same perspective, but the kaleidoscope effect of so many visions serves to illuminate rather than blur.’ Vogue
‘The writing feels precious, but also mainstream and relevant.’ Scotland on Sunday
‘What is exceptional … is the range, diversity and humour inherent in these stories. Qissat goes a long way towards dispelling the notion of the Palestinian experience as being synonymous with the image of the helpless victim … alongside the war and disruption we are treated to tales of growing up, loss of innocence and the pleasures and pains of falling in and out of love. For readers in English this is a revelation.’ Al-Ahram Weekly
First published 2006 by Telegram
This ebook edition published 2012
TELEGRAM
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London W2 5RH
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ISBN 978-1-84659-012-2
eISBN 978-1-84659-154-9
© Jo Glanville 2006
Copyright for individual stories rests with the authors and translators
Note: every effort was made to find the estates of Nuha Samara and Samira Azzam, and to locate the original translators of Adania Shibli’s story, so far without success. Should anyone have information about these persons, please contact us at the address below.
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