By David Ulin, for Barnes and nobels, published January 9, 2017
Why do we read fiction? There are as many answers to that question, I suppose, as there are readers, but for me, one of the primary reasons is empathy. Whatever else it bestows, fiction opens up the inner life, collapsing the distance between us and its narrators, its characters, connecting us at the level of the heart. To read a novel is to know someone else on the most intimate level, to sit with them, to grieve with them, to …

By Jennifer Senior, for The New York Times, December 14 2016
Aleppo has essentially fallen. The images have been unignorable, calamitous: of residents wandering numbly through burning city streets; of parents sobbing over dead children; of the strong wheeling away the weak. On Tuesday, a United Nations official described the massacre of fleeing civilians as “a complete meltdown of humanity.” Residents have been tweeting out their goodbyes. Tens of thousands have already been displaced or perished.
A once-thriving metropolis of wealth, power and culture is now in ruins.
Khaled Khalifa writes about his …

This is a translation of an article by Gregoire Lemenager for Nouvel Observateur.
The prize for the Best Foreign Book (Meilleur Livre Etranger), the jury of which includes critics and publishers, is awarded on 29 November. There are two awards, one for fiction and one for non-fiction.
In the non-fiction category, the prize was awarded to Samar Yazbek’s The Crossing.

Youssef Ait Akdim, for Jeune Afrique, July 2013.
Photo credit: Bruno Levy
Dans Souriez, vous êtes en Tunisie !, Habib Selmi dresse un portrait acide de son pays. Écrit avant la révolution, ce roman prémonitoire sonde une société en plein bouleversement.