Interview by Will Forrester for PEN Transmissions, December 8, 2021
I think that if I could go back to those days, I would do the same thing all over again. I never regret going back to Syria – being there at the frontline, and in the middle of the war – nor do I regret leaving.I always tried to stay alive, but with my personal condition I had to do what needed to be done, despite the fear. By that token, in returning and sharing in death and people’s pain, through my …

Review by Anaïs Heluin for Politis, March 2021

Le poète Aziz Mohammed offre à travers le cas d’un jeune cancéreux le portrait drôle et cruel d’une Arabie saoudite en mal de sens.

Yazbek is in the longlist of the presitigous National Book Award !
Publishers submitted a total of 164 books for the 2021 National Book Award for Translated Literature. The judges for Translated Literature are Stephen Snyder (Chair), Jessie Chaffee, Sergio de la Pava, Madhu H. Kaza, and Achy Obejas. Judge’s decisions are made independently of the National Book Foundation staff and Board of Directors and deliberations are strictly confidential.
Winners in all categories will be announced live at the National Book Awards Ceremony on November 17.

ArabLit, 9 September 2021

Organizers announced the eight novels chosen for the Prix de La Littérature Arabe, a French prize that celebrates literature by Arab authors written in French or literature translated from Arabic to French:
The prize, created in 2013 by the Jean-Luc Lagardère Foundation and the Arab World Institute, is now in its ninth year. This year’s prize features a wide range of books from Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Algeria, Mauritania, Oman, and Palestine. Three of the books are also available in English translation.
This year, the majority of the selected books are …

By M Lynx Qualey, for Middle East Eye, 15 April 2021
 
Much as Kafka’s young Gregor Samsa woke one morning to find he was an insect, Aziz Mohammed’s young narrator wakes to find his nose is bleeding, a first sign of his leukaemia. The Critical Case of a Man Called K, the Saudi author’s first novel, is in some ways a re-telling of Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, through the lens of the changes happening to a critically ill body.

By Bobsphere, February 16, 2021
Hoda Barakat’s novel, Voices of the Lost manages to pull off quite a feat. This is a novel about war, it is a political novel. It is also a novel about love, ranging from filial to romantic, abuse, trauma, , fatherhood, motherhood it’s all in there. Like a piece of tapestry this novel weaves in themes, which create multi-layered result.