Banipal 65 – The Beautiful Creatures of Fadhil Al-Azzawi celebrates the iconic Iraq novelist and poet, renowned for his innovation and originality, his “conceptual leaps, rich references and linguistic surprises”, who has lived in exile in Germany since the early 1970s. Ariel Dorfman described him as “an Iraqi master poet who opens up all the despair and tenderness of our times”.
PLUS excellent fiction: “Lost in Mecca” by Kuwaiti author Bothayna Al-Essa; from war-stricken Yemen “Please Do Not Bomb” by Lutf al-Sarary and a chapter from Land of Happy Conspiracies, the latest novel of Wajdi al-Ahdal; from Morocco, Ahmed El-Madini with two short stories; and from Egypt, Ahmad al-Qarmalawi with a chapter from his Sheikh Zayed Book Award winning novel Summer Rains. And beautiful poetry by two Palestinian poets Samer Abu Hawwash and Fatena Alghorra.