Archived since Issue 1 - February 1998
Complete Archive Perpetual Access Available

74 issues

Banipal, magazine of modern Arab literature, is an internationally renowned independent journal, founded in 1998, which produces top quality translations of works by authors and poets at the cutting edge of the contemporary Arab literary scene. The complete digital archive of Banipal issues offers unlimited access to all digital subscribers, from Number 1 (February 1998). Each issue offers an unparalleled view of contemporary Arab literature across the region, taking the pulse of the region’s writers and poets with creative works, interviews, reviews and essays, all superbly illustrated. This digital archive is an invaluable and indispensable library resource – for new students just beginning their study of the Arabic Language and Literature, or of Comparative Literature, for PhD students and post-doctoral researchers, as well as for translators at different stages of their careers. 

A subscription to Banipal will give access to the complete archive from issue 1 to issue 75.

“Excellent and exciting,” says Emeritus Professor Issa J. Boullata

“The most open, daring, democratic and attentive magazine of modern Arabic literature” says Professor Anton Shammas

Please note that at the moment subscribers to the digital edition do not also receive the print edition and vice versa.

Latest Issue:

LATEST ISSUE Banipal 75 – Celebrating 25 Years of Arab Literature This is the last issue of Banipal, the independent literary magazine, marking 25 years of translating and publishing contemporary literature by Arab authors. Arabic literature will always need a magazine like Banipal. In fact, more than one. We′re closing at No 75, not because the magazine is no longer necessary but because we, as central producers, can no longer continue to operate. We no longer have the physical energy necessary and believe that for the magazine to continue, there must be new blood, a young staff, all with the same enthusiasm and conviction that we have had all these years. We leave behind a massive archive of literature by umpteen different authors and in different genres, opening up an endlessly enthralling world of Arabic literary works that’s available as an institutional digital edition and individual print back issues. Margaret Obank, the publisher In this last issue: • Some of our long-standing editors, translators, reviewers and authors • An opening poem by Adonis, who also opened Banipal No 1, February 1997 • A feature remembering Armenian-Iraqi painter Ardash Kakafian • Najwa Barakat writing on her “Literary Influences” • Anton Shammas sharing a question he waited for ten years to ask Emile Habiby • Excerpts from the 2022 Sheikh Zayed Book Award for Literature winner, “The Café Riche – An Eye on Egypt” by Maisoon Saqer • Plus Abdelfattah Kilito, Katia Al-Tawil, Nizar Aghri, Nouri Al-Jarrah, Jamila Omairah, Ann El Safi, Walid Hermiz, Amir Sommer, Rawi Hage, Jamal Fayez, Thaer Deeb, Menna Abo Zahra, and Ghalib Halasa

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Research Areas: Foreign Languages, Literature, Middle Eastern Studies

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  • First Issue: Issue 1 - February 1998
  • Latest Issue: Banipal 75 – Autumn/Winter 2022
  • Issue Count: 74
  • Page Count: 13,605
  • Published: Three times a year
  • ISSN: 2059-5263

Banipal magazine is the ever-open window on today’s Arab literary scene. Since the first issue, of three per year, the magazine has brought Arab writers into the global arena through English translation.


Banipal is an independent literary magazine, founded in 1998 by Margaret Obank and Iraqi author Samuel Shimon, publishing contemporary authors and poets from all over the Arab world in English translation, presenting both established and emerging writers, most for the first time, through poems, short stories or excerpts of novels, and also including author interviews, profiles and book reviews All are well illustrated with author photographs and book covers, and each of the later issues is themed. Some issues have focused on particular countries for particular reasons, such as countries whose literatures are hardly known in the West (and sometimes even within the Arab world) but where there are important emerging or well-known voices within the country that need to be heard more widely.


From the first issue, the three cornerstones of Banipal have been that Arab literature is an essential part of world culture and human civilisation; that the essential dialogue between different cultures needs to be continually deepened; and that the joy and enlightenment to be gained from reading beautiful poetry and imaginative writing is an integral part of human existence. These three points have guided Banipal’s translation and promotion of contemporary Arab literature.


Literary translation has such an inspirational power to develop dialogue and interaction between cultures; the moment a reader starts to read a translation intercultural dialogue begins. Literary translators are interpreters of human values – and the true peacemakers. The magazine is indebted to the many professors of Arabic literature, to their students, and to the ever-growing ranks of Arabic to English literary translators, at various stages in their careers, who have contributed, and continue to contribute, to Banipal’s pages.

Banipal is a magazine for lovers of literature, especially world literature; it encourages a wider readership of Arab writers and poets for their own sake, for both the particularity and the universality of their voices, for their diversity and vibrancy, enabling fruitful discourse to develop, that will lead to further exchange, mutual respect, new writings, deeper understanding, and Arab literature taking its rightful place in the canon of world literature.


In 2011 a GUEST LITERATURE section was started featuring literature from a non-Arab country in order to extend intercultural dialogue into a trialogue, with English as a go-between. Among the countries featured have been The Netherlands, Flanders, Slovenia, South Korea and Germany. Guest writers have been from Vietnam, Romania, France, the UK and USA. The magazine has also featured Arab authors writing in other languages, such as Catalan, Dutch, German, English and French.


Free from cultural stereotypes and making a unique contribution to world literature and intercultural dialogue, Banipal is a vital initiator of Arab literature in translation, highly regarded by university departments teaching Arabic literature, by translators both experienced and beginners, by publishers, by international literary organisations, and above all by Arab authors themselves. It has also become a crucial middleman, go-between, linking the works of Arab authors with organisations and publishers and readers in the West.


The magazine’s size has changed three times: Banipals 1 to 18 (1998 to 2003) were A4 size, averaging 80 pages; issues 19 to 33 (2004 to 2008) were smaller with double the number of pages, that is 170 x 245mm and 160 pages; and from issue 34 (2009 onwards) the size is reduced again and number of pages increased, to a paperback size of 152 x 229 mm and 224 pages.


Website: www.banipal.co.uk Sister website: www.banipaltrust.org.uk

“The best contemporary Arabic magazine . . . nothing is lost in translation” – Anton Shammas


“Not merely a bridge between two cultures but . . . a laboratory that illuminates the styles of modern Arabic writings”Adonis




“The encyclopedia of Arabic literature that is amassed in Banipal is a staggering accomplishment” Fady Joudah


“Its past issues constitute an incomparable archive”Robert Irwin