A collective retreat that brings together writers in and from the Arab world working with their various first languages: Arabic, English, and French.
The Arab world comprises distinct and vibrant scenes whose writers engage different audiences based on the language they write in, which rarely overlap. This multilingual reality shapes the narratives of the region and these writers and scenes are often unconnected, with little in the form of translation, publishing or meetings bringing them together. In trying to understand what stories they tell collectively, we are interested in bringing these scenes together within a shared space where they can speak for and among themselves.
Arabics is a gathering of writers invited to come together and take part in writing, reading, and translating sessions, where terms such as “writer” and “Arab” are viewed in a variety of material conditions, countries, mobilities, publishing practices, exclusions and opportunities that require close attention and reflection. This retreat provides time and space for various writers of the contemporary literatures of the Arab world to work together, share processes, interests, doubts, and, above all, to meet, without performing to an audience.