The Weaver Reads reviewed Sardines and Oranges by Peter Clark
Good Collection of Short Fiction from Northern Africa
4 stars
I miss Banipal. It was a great magazine that translated Arabic literary works--whether poetry, short stories, criticism, and even novels--and made them accessible to a larger audience. This book is a Banipal text that collects a few dozen short stories from Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Sudan, and Tunisia. I'm not sure that this "cluster" of countries makes much sense in any cultural way, but it is reflective of sheer geography. Egypt/Sudan and Algeria/Morocco/Tunisia would be better off grouped in these discrete categories.
I might be pedantic here, but it's for good reason--there are clear similarities between the stories from the "Maghrib" and the stories from the Nile River Valley, but they don't really talk to each other beyond some vague sense of "arabicity" (عروبة). But, if that's the case, which is entirely valid, then there isn't really any reason to include stories from the East as well.
Still, most of …
I miss Banipal. It was a great magazine that translated Arabic literary works--whether poetry, short stories, criticism, and even novels--and made them accessible to a larger audience. This book is a Banipal text that collects a few dozen short stories from Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Sudan, and Tunisia. I'm not sure that this "cluster" of countries makes much sense in any cultural way, but it is reflective of sheer geography. Egypt/Sudan and Algeria/Morocco/Tunisia would be better off grouped in these discrete categories.
I might be pedantic here, but it's for good reason--there are clear similarities between the stories from the "Maghrib" and the stories from the Nile River Valley, but they don't really talk to each other beyond some vague sense of "arabicity" (عروبة). But, if that's the case, which is entirely valid, then there isn't really any reason to include stories from the East as well.
Still, most of them were good, well-translated, and meaningful. I was pleased to see that my former Arabic instructor, Professor Shakir Mustafa, was responsible for a handful of the translations here.