Among the recipients of the 2017 PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grants this year is Joyce Zonana “for her translation of This Land That Is Like You by Tobie Nathan, a novel set in the Jewish quarter of Cairo in the early part of the twentieth century. Written in French by an Egyptian-born ethno-psychiatrist, diplomat, and writer, this work explores the mystical and fantastical elements of Jewish and Arab Egyptians. (Available for publication.).”

Here’s an excerpt- sounds intriguing!

“Although Esther returned to the human world, she came back from her adventure among the demons with strange ways. People called her “topsy-turvy”; they claimed that the afrit, that devil composed of the Nile’s silt who had possessed her since her fall, had turned her inside out like a sock to be mended. Her behavior was the inverse of a young girl’s.  She swore like a water-seller, reeling off strings of nasty words and insulting grownups in the streets, even the men in her family.”