AL REFAI, Taleb

Taleb Al Refai
2012 Resident
  • Asia
  • Western Asia
  • Kuwait
Arabic

Taleb AL REFAI (fiction writer; Kuwait) has published seven collections of short stories, a play, a number of critical works, and four novels, including the controversial [The Shadow of the Sun] ( ظل الشمس ( in 1998. His 2002 [The Scent of the Sea] ) ( رائحة البحر won the Kuwait National Award for Arts & Literature. Trained as an engineer, Al-Refai has since joined the staff of the National Council for Culture, Art and Literature, where he manages the Culture and Arts Department. His articles appear regularly in the Al-Hayat and Al-Jarida Kuwaiti newspapers; in 2009 he chaired the Arabic Booker Prize for Fiction. He participates courtesy of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.

PDF icon Writing sample
On The Map interview

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Happening Now

  • Jennifer Feeley’s translation of Tongueless, Lau Yee-wa’s thriller sketching Hong Kong’s slide toward linguistic totalitarianism, is forthcoming from Feminist Press.

  • In addition to becoming the Berlin LitFest’s first curator-in-residence, Helon Habila has also just received Kaduna Books and Art Festival’s KabaFest Lifetime Achievement Award, celebrating his "exceptional writing and significant contributions to the development of literature globally."

  • Congratulations to Enah Johnscott, whose film Half Heaven won three awards at the Cameroon International Film Festival—best film, best director, and best cinematographer.

  • We regret the passing, on April 11, 2024, of the distinguished Romanian author and critic Dan Cristea, who served as the editor in chief of the Luceafărul de Dimineață cultural monthly. In addition to being an alum of the 1985 Fall Residency, Cristea received his PhD in Comparative Literature at the University of Iowa.

  • Our congratulations to 1986 Fall Residency writer Kwame Dawes, who has been named the new poet laureate of Jamaica.

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