Gaza 2035

Haytham el-Wardany’s most recent book in Arabic is Banat Awa and the Missing Letters (2023), which considers forgotten expressions of hope within Arabic fables, where animals speak and humans listen. His publications translated into English include The Book of Sleep (Al-Karma, 2017; Seagull Books, 2020) and How to Disappear (Kayfa ta, 2013, 2017, 2021). He lives and works in Berlin. (updated 4/2025)

Katharine Halls is an Arabic-to-English translator from Cardiff, Wales. Her translation of Ahmed Naji’s prison memoir Rotten Evidence (McSweeney’s, 2023) was awarded the Saif Ghobash Banipal prize and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for autobiography. Her work has appeared in Frieze, Kenyon Review, AGNI, Mousse, The Believer, McSweeney’s, The Common, and elsewhere. Her most recent translation is Shady Lewis’s On The Greenwich Line (Peirene Press, 2025). She is also one third of teneleven, an agency for contemporary Arabic literature. (updated 4/2025)