Ali al-Muqri is a Yemeni author born in 1966. He has served as a cultural editor for several publications and is known for his bold literary work exploring religion, sexuality, and identity. Al-Muqri faced repeated campaigns of intimidation for his writings, particularly his books Wine and Nabīd in Islam (2007) and Hurmah (2012), which challenged traditional religious narratives. He left Yemen for France following the outbreak of war and was among those targeted by the Houthi regime, which confiscated his property.He is the author of more than ten books, including Black Taste, Black Smell (2008), The Handsome Jew (2009), Hurmah (2012), Adeni Incense (2014), and The Leader’s Country (2019). His novels have been longlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction, and Hurmah’s French translation (Femme interdite) won the Prix de la Littérature Arabe in 2015. Adeni Incense was shortlisted for the Sheikh Zayed Book Award. His works have been translated into multiple languages, and in 2022, he was named a Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government.Mbarek Sryfi, poet, translator, and scholar. His work has been widely published in many journals and magazines, and anthologies including Al-Arabiyya, Banipal, CELAAN Review, Metamorphoses, Middle Eastern Literatures, The Journal of North African Studies, Translation Review, World Literature Today, and ArabLit. Sryfi has co-authored Perspectives: Arabic Language and Culture in Film (2009), translated & co-translated, The Monarch of the Square (2014), The Arabs and the Art of Storytelling (2014), The Elusive Fox (2016), The Blueness of the Evening (2018), The Handsome Jew (2022), and Alone by the Nile (2023). Sryfi published a chapbook, The Trace of a Smile (2018), which shared first place, and two collections of poetry, City Poems-A Selection of poems (2020), Chasing a Moving Landscape (2022)
