Sardines and Oranges Short Stories from North Africa

Twenty-six hard-hitting, passionate, moving, funny and human stories from North Africa by 21 authors from Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Sudan and Tunisia. Latifa Baqa, Ahmed Bouzfour, Rachida el-Charni, Mohamed Choukri, Mohammed Dib, Tarek Eltayeb, Mansoura Ez-Eldin, Gamal el-Ghitani, Said al-Kafrawi, Idriss el-Kouri, Ahmed el-Madini, Ali Mosbah, Hassouna Mosbahi, Muhammad Mustagab, Hassan Nasr, Rabia Raihane, Tayeb Salih, Habib Selmi, Izz al-Din Tazi and Mohammed Zefzaf. Many of these authors are major literary figures in their own countries, and the Arab world. They have broken with taboos and censorship, and established standards of innovation that have encouraged younger generations of authors. Pain, hardship, heartache, humour, identity, joy, loss and strategies for survival are universal themes and all are represented here, writes Peter Clark, who edited and introduces the stories, and is one of the thirteen translators of the volume.

Mansoura Ez-Eldin was born in 1976 in a small village in Delta Egypt, and graduated in journalism from Cairo University in 1998. She started publishing her short stories in the Arab press when she was just 21, and a collection Dhaw’a Muhtaz [Shaken Light] was published in Cairo in 2001. She has worked in Egyptian television, and in the book review section of the renowned Egyptian literary magazine Akhbar al-Adab [Literature News]. She is presently co-editor of the magazine. Mohamed Choukri, (15 July 1935 – 15 November 2003), one of Morocco’s great contemporary writers, wrote and published his first short story in 1966, when many international writers lived and stayed in Tangiers, where Choukri grew up and lived. Choukri became friends with many, such as Paul Bowles, who became his translator, Tennessee Williams, Jean Genet, Samuel Beckett and William Burroughs. He wrote three novels, all mainly autobiographical, two collections of short stories, the first in early 1970s, one play and a book of literary reflections. Tayeb Salih (1929–2009) is renowned as one of the 20th-century’s greatest authors, particularly for his novel Season of Migration to the North, translated into English by his friend Denys Johnson-Davies, which was declared ‘the most important Arabic novel of the 20th century’ by the Arab Literary Academy in 2001. It remains a pivotal point in post-colonial narrative and has been translated into more than 20 languages. It has never been out of print in English, in a number of different editions. Tayeb Salih was born in Karmakol, near al-Dabbah in northern Sudan. Dr Peter Clark OBE is a consultant, writer and translator. He has degrees from Keele University and the University of Leicester. Among his books are Marmaduke Pickthall, British Muslim (1986, to be reissued in 2016), Thesiger's Return (1992), Coffeehouse Footnotes (2010), Istanbul (2010) and Damascus Diaries, Life under the Assads (2015). He is a Contributing Editor of Banipal.