Running to 2500 pages in the original version, Abdalrachman Munif's five-volume novel cycle Cities of Salt is one of the cornerstones of Arab literature and a subversive chronicle of Saudi Arabia. Angela Schader introduces the novel cycle and publication of the final volume, Variations on Night and Day
BANIPAL magazine publishes contemporary Arab authors from all over the world in English translation. Based in London, the magazine is entering its tenth year of publication. A portrait by Volker Kaminski
Due to the well-nigh total oppression of cultural life during 42 years of Gaddafi's dictatorship, Libyan literature has for decades been produced abroad. But with the uprising, everything has changed for them, too. Susannah Tarbush reports