Mona Kareem

Nov 15, 2023 | themillions.com | Mona Kareem

For my millennial generation of Arabic writers, Ahmed Naji is a name we associate with play and risk. Naji is a practitioner of humor and sarcasm, profanity and sex positivity, all interwoven with a politics of despair. He is terrified of melancholia and nostalgia, but through this fear, a close reader can feel the warm presence of a vulnerable man.

Nov 15, 2023 | everand.com | Mona Kareem

For my millennial generation of Arabic writers, Ahmed Naji is a name we associate with play and risk. Naji is a practitioner of humor and sarcasm, profanity and sex positivity, all interwoven with a politics of despair. He is terrified of melancholia and nostalgia, but through this fear, a close reader can feel the warm presence of a vulnerable man.

Aug 10, 2023 | tinyurl.com | Mona Kareem |Sara Elkamel

I Will Not Fold These Maps by Mona Kareem, translated from the Arabic by Sara Elkamel, Poetry Translation Centre, 2023In 1986, just one year before the poet Mona Kareem was born, the stateless Arab population of Kuwait, who had been denied citizenship when Kuwait declared its independence in 1961, became categorized as illegal residents.

May 31, 2023 | yalereview.org | Mona Kareem |Sara Elkamel

Mona Kareem Sara Elkamel I sat in the chair opposite him before he said I could. Fear had paralyzed my knees; my back could only lean against the wall. As he pulled the door closed and leapt toward his desk, I quickly went over the key milestones in my life, which I had charted and rehearsed aloud in the days leading up to this trip. It suddenly annoyed me that I made no effort to study stars or insignia patches; maybe then I could have guessed his rank. Do I ask him?

May 30, 2023 | thecommononline.org | Mona Kareem

By MONA KAREEMTranslated from the Arabic by SARA ELKAMELReviewed by SUMMER FARAHMy first encounter with Mona Kareem’s work was not her poetry, but her essay in Poetry Birmingham on the trend of Western poets “translating” from languages they are not literate in.