Limits and Aspirations of Arab Womanhood
Date August, 18 2021
Location Live Zoom Webinar
Co-hosted by the Edinburgh International Book Festival, Sheikh Zayed Book Award hosted Iman Mersal as she spoke about her acclaimed book (In the Footsteps of Enayat Al-Zayyat), for which she received the 2021 Sheikh Zayed Book Award for Literature.
The literary discussion entitled “The Limits and Aspirations of Arab Womanhood” was moderated by writer and poet Mona Kareem where panelists addressed timely topics such as contemporary Arab womanhood and the role of translation in carrying words to new homes and languages.
Speakers
Mona Kareem
Writer and poet
Iman Mersal
Egyptian poet, writer, academic and translator. She works as an Associate professor of Arabic literature and Middle Eastern studies at the University of Alberta, Canada and currently resides in Marseille, France, where she holds the Albert Camus chair at IMéRA, the Institute for Advanced Study of Aix-Marseille University until July 2021, while working on a book entitled Al Laknah: Al Sawt fee Ghair Makaneh (Accent: the Displaced Voice). An anthology of her works was translated into more than twenty languages and she has five poetry collections published. Her most recent published works include Hatta Atakhlla Aan Fekrat Al Boyot (Until I Abandon the Idea of Homes) in 2013, Kayfa Taltaem: Aan Al Omoma wa Askhbahuha (How to Amend: On Motherhood and its Ghosts) in 2017, and Fee Athar Enayat Al Zayyat (In the Footsteps of Enayat Al-Zayyat) in 2019. Her book, Mamar Moetem Yasloh fee Talom Al Raks (A Dark Path Suitable for Learning to Dance), is one of the most important poetry books issued by the generation of the nineties in Arabic poetry.