Yassin Adnan, author of Hot Maroc, longlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction, with translator Alexander Elinson in a conversation moderated by Luke Leafgren, lecturer in Comparative Literature.

Longlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2017, Hot Maroc is a vital portrait of the challenges Moroccans, young and old, face today. Where press freedoms are tightly controlled by government authorities, where the police spy on, intimidate, and detain citizens with impunity, and where adherence to traditional cultural icons both anchors and stifles creative production, the online world provides an alternative for the young and voiceless. In this revolutionary novel Adnan fixes his lens on young Rahhal and his contemporaries as they navigate the perilous and changing landscape of the real and virtual worlds they inhabit. Yassin Adnan, author, and Alexander Elinson, translator, will join Luke Leafgren in conversation about the process of translating from Arabic to English.

About the Speakers

Yassin Adnan (poet, fiction writer, editor, television presenter) is the author of six poetry collections, three short story collections, one novel, and one book about travel. The novel, Hot Maroc, was translated into English in 2021. Adnan serves as president of the Marrakech English Book Festival and as a member of the board of trustees of the International Prize for Arabic Fiction. The founder of two literary magazines, he has also hosted two cultural television programs, one radio show, and one podcast. He is the editor of various titles, including the anthology Marrakech Noir (2018).

Alexander Elinson is an Associate Professor of  Arabic Language and Literature at Hunter College/CUNY and directs the Hunter College Summer Arabic Program. His research interests cut across the Middle East and North Africa, and include Arabic and Hebrew literature from the pre-Islamic to the modern period. His current book project, entitled Looking Back: The Poetics of Loss and Nostalgia in Muslim Spain, examines the intersection between literary convention and poetic subjectivity in the literature of Muslim Spain. Current translation and research projects include an examination of prison writing in Morocco.

Luke Leafgren is an Assistant Dean of Harvard College and a Lecturer on Comparative Literature at Harvard University. He has translated seven novels from Arabic and has twice received the Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation, in 2018 for Muhsin Al-Ramli’s The President’s Gardens and in 2023 for Najwa Barakat’s Mister N.

Co-sponsored by the Mahindra Humanities Center Rethinking Translation Seminar, and the Center for Middle Eastern Studies.