A review by Nadia Leila Aissaoui, for L’Orient-Le-Jour, February 2nd, 2023
 
The Orchards of Basra by Mansoura Ez-Eldin, translated from Arabic (Egypt) by Philippe Vigreux, Sindbad/Actes-sud, 2023, 224 p.
In this captivating and remarkably translated novel, Mansoura Ez-Eldin takes us on a round trip in time and space, between Cairo and Basra, to meet timeless characters in a story that subtly mixes fiction and historical fact.

A review by Maya Kergall and Olivia Phelip, for Via Books, February 19th, 2023
At the start of 2023, many publications give pride of place to foreign literature. We find some heavyweights like the latest books by the late Javier Marias, Colson Whitehead, Joyce Carol Oates or the reissue of a major text by Vassili Grossman. These giants rub shoulders with a few novels whose authors are to be discovered without delay: thus the young Iranian Nassim Marashi, the American Ash Davidson, the Egyptian novelist Mansoura Ez-Eldin or even the American …

Damien Aubel, February 2023,  for Transfuge
Mansoura Ezeldin’s novel has the intensity and mystery of a marvelous gem. It illuminates this winter’s publications.
Here is a book which delights the reader in exactly the same proportion as it condemns the critic to embarrassment.
A book that prevents any analytical intent, and causes a thousand rare pleasures. A small prowess in which the qualities apparently least likely to agree come together with the most perfect naturalness. A malleable alloy where are mixed together the highest erudition — the intellectual effervescence of the Basra of the 8th century –; the flow, both tumultuous and …

Samar Yazbek’s book “The Wind’s abode”, published by Stock presented in ‘C’est ce soir’ on France 5.
Listen to the presentation here