Libya, Morrocco

Floods, Earthquake, Writers

Libya

Morrocco

An earthquake in Morrocco on September 8, 2023, has killed nearly 3,000 people and many missing. - M 6.8 - 54 km WSW of Oukaïmedene, Morocco (usgs.gov)

Floods in Libya on September 10, 2023 have killed over 5,000.

There is no news about libraries.

Here are two writers from the affected countries.

Bensalem Himmich (Morrocco)

Bensalem Himmich ‘s novel Majnoun Al-Hukm (The Theocrat) was chosen by the Egyptian Writers’ Union as one of the 100 best novels of the 20th Century.

The Theocrat takes as its subject one of Arab and Islamic history’s most perplexing figures, al-Hakim bi-Amr Illah (“the ruler by order of God”), the Fatimid caliph who ruled Egypt during the tenth century. It is translated and published by the American University in Cairo Press.

Najwa Binshatwan (Libya)

Najwa Binshatwan is a Libyan academic and novelist, born in Ajdabiya, Libya, in 1970. She was the first Libyan author to be shortlisted, in 2017, for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction, for her novel The Slave Yards (2016). It has been translated into English and published by Syracuse University Press.

In her story, The Eavesdropper, the narrator goes to the library.