Shalash the IraqiPopulated by a cast of imagined con artists, holy fools, drag queens, and partisans as well as some very factual politicians, priests, and generals this novel started life as a pseudonymous blog written live by Shalash during and after the Second Iraq War. Never written to be published, all but lost save for disintegrating printouts treasured by its devotees, Shalash the Iraqi is here presented in its first authorised translation, with the blessing

She was the winner of the first prize in the 1999 Commonwealth Short Story Competition and a prize of £2

mentor poets and artists

Nujoom al-Ghanem – Selected Poems

following his debut poetry collection

With twists shifting from the comically mischievous to the abruptly chilling

It’s the story of how a tattooed transgender rock singer killed a depressed suburban dad

Banipal 67 – Elias Khoury

and was released in 1991

The issue also includes a chapter from the forthcoming novel in translation

It explores a wide variety of viewpoints – translated poems

He was one of the few Westerners to be in Cuba at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis

an anonymous narrator ruminates on the end of the world