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The Cultural Frontline: Fiction from the Arab World

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Fiction from the Arab World

29/04/2017 GMT

BBC World Service - The Cultural Frontline, Fiction from the Arab World

What kinds of subjects have preoccupuied writers in the region for the last decade?

Saudi writer Mohammed Hasan Alwan has been announced as the winner of the International Prize for Arabic Fiction. Now in its 10th year, the prize aims to bring the region’s rich and varied literary output to a wider audience. Alwan and commentator Anwar Hamed discuss how the upheavals of the past 10 years have been reflected in novels and poetry.

As France prepares to choose between Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen in next month’s Presidential election, writer Agnes Poirier considers how Macron the outsider may represent more cultural continuity than it appears.

A literary exercise called The Black Obituary Project is encouraging black men and women in the US to write their own obituaries. It aims to highlight the psychological impact of police shootings on the wider black community. Founder Ja’han Jones explains what has surprised him most about the response.

Israeli singer David Broza discusses a career that spans more than 40 years and in the week that Radiohead have been criticised for planning to perform in Israel, reflects on why he doesn’t think cultural boycotts are productive.

With Tina Daheley.

(Photo: a woman reads in a bookshop Credit:SAFIN HAMED/AFP/Getty Images)

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