The Madness of Despair

Ghalya F T Al Said is a novelist from Oman who studied in both Oman and the UK, and has a PhD in International Relations from the University of Warwick. She has published poems, short stories and six novels. Her novels focus on immigrants in foreign, usually Western, settings and their attempts to cope and adapt to conflicting concepts of belief and culture. The Madness of Despair is her first novel to have been translated into English from its original Arabic and is one of four set in the UK. Her other novels include Days in Heaven (2005), Sabira and Asila (2007), Scattered Years (2008), The Tedium of Time (2015 and 2017) and District of the Blind (2019). She has opened a traditional Museum in Oman and plans to open a second one on culturally related themes. Raphael Cohen is a professional translator and lexicographer who studied Arabic and Hebrew at Oxford University and the University of Chicago. He has translated a growing number of novels by contemporary Arab authors including Flowers in Flames by Amir Tag Elsir (2022), Guard of the Dead by George Yarak (2019), Butterfly Wings: an Egyptian Novel (2014) by Mohamed Salmawy, The Art of Forgetting (2011) and The Bridges of Constantine (2014) by Ahlem Mosteghanemi, Status Emo by Eslam Mosbah (2013) and So You May See by Mona Prince (2011). He is the translator of The Madness of Despair by Ghayla F T Al Said, and translated and introduced Poems of Alexandria and New York by Ahmed Morsi (both Banipal Books, 2021). He was a contributing editor of Banipal magazine of modern Arab literature that closed in 2022 where his translations included works by Arab poets Ahmed Rashid Thani, Samer Abu Hawwash, Hala Mohammad, Ahmed Al-Mulla and Marwan Makhoul. Forthcoming in 2024 with Banipal Books is his translation of The Secrets of Folder 42 by Abdelmajid Sebbata.