ArabLit Quarterly

ArabLit Quarterly emerged in 2018 from the community around the ArabLit website and Bulaq podcast. It aims to bring out beautiful literary translations from Arabic, fresh work by Arab artists, and also new forms of literary criticism that re-frame the discussions around Arabic literature, translation, and art. In our pages, you can find classical Arabic recipes in translation, illuminative infographics, and literary playlists.

The Spring 2022 issue of ArabLit Quarterly reflects authors & illustrators′ thoughts and feelings about MIRRORS, from al-Jahiz in ninth century Iraq to a recipe-compiler in a thirteenth-century Andalusi cookbook to poets and writers of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, both widely acclaimed and newly emerging. While mirrors have lost their wonder for many twenty-first century writers -- who find themselves surrounded and besieged by reflective surfaces -- this issue nonetheless helps us regain a distance from and appreciation for mirrors, both solid and surreal.


This issue also includes the four short stories shortlisted for the 2021 ArabLit Story Prize, as well as the winner of our 2021 prize: Mustafa Taj Aldeen Almosa′s "How Kind They Are," translated by Maisaa Tanjour and Alice Holttum.


With work by Mohamed Choukri, Nawal Nasrallah, Rasha Abbas, Karima Ahdad, Duna Ghali, and more.