Addie Leak
addieleak.bsky.social
Addie Leak
@addieleak.bsky.social
Translator (AR/FR>EN), lover of languages/lit/travel. 🐈 mom, future Jordanian citizen, avid hiker/backpacker. Catch me on the #JordanTrail! #amtranslating Mariam, It's Arwa: https://wordswithoutborders.org/read/article/2022-07/hi-maryam-its-arwa
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This is me! Read my intro and the rest of the amazing feature on Words Without Borders.
Reposted by Addie Leak
We’re excited to share one of our latest publications of Brazilian lit: “Just a Game” by José J. Veiga (tr. Thomas Mira y Lopez). The short story considers what happens when political and military authority runs rampant in a small town. Read it here: wordswithoutborders.org/read/article...
December 16, 2025 at 3:05 PM
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"I realized I was living in a kind of waystation where the word 'temporary' was permanent"

Haifa Abualnadi's "Sidewalks of an Anxious City," translated by Addie Leak (@addieleak.bsky.social), portrays a personal struggle of adapting to life in Amman. Check it out below!
Sidewalks of an Anxious City
HAIFA ABUALNADI <br> Amman is a city of deferred migration with no hope of arriving, depression with no hope of recovery, and the scam that is returnees’ dream of connection. Amman isn’t mine.…
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July 27, 2025 at 2:01 PM
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"All our lives combined wouldn’t give us the time we’d need to make my city as green as it once was"

Haifa Abualnadi traces the changes and tensions of life in Amman in "Sidewalks of an Anxious City," translated by Addie Leak (@addieleak.bsky.social). Check it out below!
Sidewalks of an Anxious City
HAIFA ABUALNADI <br> Amman is a city of deferred migration with no hope of arriving, depression with no hope of recovery, and the scam that is returnees’ dream of connection. Amman isn’t mine.…
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August 3, 2025 at 6:01 PM
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"We stop in everywhere, then head home after we lose our cravings but before we lose our minds."

Read Issue 29's "Sufi Trance," a tender fiction piece by Maryam Dajani and translated by Addie Leak (@addieleak.bsky.social), below. And do check out the rest of our Amman portfolio!
Sufi Trance
MARYAM DAJANI <br> I’m leaving Abdoun after having sushi at Noodasia, heading toward Airport Road. The traffic light in front of me turns red, and all I have to do is step on the brakes… but where…
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May 31, 2025 at 2:02 PM
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"She’d drawn a girl on the beach, writing on the sand with a crooked branch. Beneath her, she wrote in English: Find me."

Ala Janbek strolls Amman's anatomy in his Issue 29 essay "Wandering," translated by @addieleak.bsky.social‬. Read this and the complete Amman portfolio below!

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Wandering
ALA JANBEK <br> After a year and a half in the neighborhood, I no longer wonder if I should buy a snack from the red shop or the blue one; instead, I buy from Abu Hussein, who throws in a date and a…
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June 15, 2025 at 2:03 PM
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"I whirl around with Amman, weary, in a Sufi trance that has never given me the grace to achieve oneness."

Maryam Dajani's "Sufi Trance" circles and spirals into Amman's soundscapes, deftly translated by Addie Leak (@addieleak.bsky.social). Read this jewel of Issue 29's Amman portfolio here!
Sufi Trance
MARYAM DAJANI <br> I’m leaving Abdoun after having sushi at Noodasia, heading toward Airport Road. The traffic light in front of me turns red, and all I have to do is step on the brakes… but where…
buff.ly
June 7, 2025 at 6:02 PM
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Last call to attend our livestreamed Ottaway Award ceremony on 6/3! Join us as we celebrate Christopher Merrill with a laudation from Alane Salierno Mason, along with remarks from Merrill himself. RSVP here: wordswithoutborders.org/events/2025-...
June 2, 2025 at 2:57 PM
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Ever notice how we don’t have a bestselling or award-winning book written by ChatGPT? Believe me, if one existed, OpenAI would shout it from the rooftops. But the only thing they can generate is trash.
June 1, 2025 at 7:52 PM
Paywall means I can't actually access the info, but I am tentatively overjoyed? YAY positive blurb in a series of heartrending news cycles...
More than a century after the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921, one of the most horrific episodes of racial violence in U.S. history, the city’s mayor announced a $105 million reparations package on Sunday. It is the first large-scale plan committing funds to address the impact of the atrocity.
$105 Million Reparations Package for Tulsa Race Massacre Unveiled by Mayor
www.nytimes.com
June 3, 2025 at 9:23 AM
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"Fifteen years ago, Arabic literature in translation was mostly published with an anthropological lens by university presses. The influx of new translators has shifted the landscape." WWB Executive Director @lissiejaquette.bsky.social in Publisher's Weekly: www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/...
Away from the Underdog Narrative: PW Talks with Lissie Jaquette
The executive director of the translated literature nonprofit Words Without Borders, who also translates from Arabic, sees the landscape for literature in translation finally changing in the U.S.
www.publishersweekly.com
May 27, 2025 at 4:16 PM
Yeeees, check it out! And the hard copy magazine is stunning!
"We stop in everywhere, then head home after we lose our cravings but before we lose our minds."

Read Issue 29's "Sufi Trance," a tender fiction piece by Maryam Dajani and translated by Addie Leak (@addieleak.bsky.social), below. And do check out the rest of our Amman portfolio!
Sufi Trance
MARYAM DAJANI <br> I’m leaving Abdoun after having sushi at Noodasia, heading toward Airport Road. The traffic light in front of me turns red, and all I have to do is step on the brakes… but where…
buff.ly
June 2, 2025 at 3:23 PM
Reposted by Addie Leak
Also in essays, an excerpt from Iman Mersal’s MOTHERHOOD AND ITS GHOSTS, translated from the Arabic by Robin Moger. www.nplusonemag.com/issue-50/ess...
Our Butterfly | Iman Mersal
Delivered Youssef to the place in Maine. I say “the place,” because I don’t know how to describe it. Is it a camp? A hospital? An asylum?
www.nplusonemag.com
May 21, 2025 at 2:33 PM
This is so exciting! More of this in the US, please!
On Bulbul, a First-of-its-kind Arabic Children’s Magazine in North America

Pediatrician and children’s-book author Arwa Nasir is the force behind Bulbul Books, an Arabic children’s-book publishing house based in the US. This year, she has launched a new monthly magazine of the same name.
On Bulbul, a First-of-its-kind Arabic Children’s Magazine in North America
Pediatrician and children’s-book author Arwa Nasir is the force behind Bulbul Books, an Arabic children’s-book publishing house based in the US. This year, she has launched a new monthly magazine of the same name.
arablit.org
May 23, 2025 at 12:27 PM
Reposted by Addie Leak
"The story of Amman is therefore an old one: Revitalized by immigrants after a period of dormancy, the city then developed a centripetal force that drew migrants from many and various surrounding areas."

Hisham Bustani writes about Amman in his essay in Issue 29.

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Amman: The Heaviness and Lightness of Place
HISHAM BUSTANI <br> Today, I follow the old path of the sayl around Jabal Amman (the “mountain” of Amman) and grieve. Nature spent centuries shaping a miracle, only for it to be destroyed in a few…
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May 12, 2025 at 1:03 PM
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🌱 FRIDAY
May 16- 8 pm
Molasses Books
(brooklyn)

Please join @mayadamayadamay.bsky.social & Miled Faiza reading poems / translations from #ArabicBetweenLoveAndWar with Laura al-Tibi & Amr Amer
May 13, 2025 at 4:31 PM
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Today on ArabLit: a new "Between Two Arabic Translators."

Special shout-outs to @tracepress.bsky.social, Seagull Books, Ammiel Alcalay.

arablit.org/2025/05/14/o...
May 14, 2025 at 7:42 AM
Very much looking forward to this webinar--always so much more to learn!
May 10, 2025 at 9:30 AM
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All true democracies place a high value on freedom of expression in the arts and humanities, as have all U.S. presidential administrations. Until now. The quality of a democracy can be judged by the quality of its arts.

Stay tuned for updates on our legal actions.

authorsguild.org/news/trumps-...
May 9, 2025 at 7:46 PM
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For most of our existence, WWB has received funding from the NEA. Now, like many others, we must chart a path forward without it. But our readers still deserve access to dazzling global writing. Please donate or share our work to support our mission of bringing the world close through literature.
May 5, 2025 at 8:33 PM
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"Amman is not incidental. The sayl, the stream that patiently carved a path between seven hills for thousands of years, drew [...] the din of life."

Hisham Bustani writes a wonderful essay, "Amman: The Heaviness and Lightness of Place," describing the history and the landscape of Amman.
Amman: The Heaviness and Lightness of Place
HISHAM BUSTANI <br> Today, I follow the old path of the sayl around Jabal Amman (the “mountain” of Amman) and grieve. Nature spent centuries shaping a miracle, only for it to be destroyed in a few…
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May 5, 2025 at 6:02 PM
Psyched to be a part of this--can't wait to read the full issue.
Issue 29 is OUT and we're so excited to share our portfolio of writing and art from Amman, Jordan, including this beautiful portfolio of color photography by Majd Hijjawi, Momen Malkawi, and Husam Manasrah. You can see all the photos (and the rest of the issue!!) live on our website right now. 📸
Amman in Color: Majd Hijjawi, Momen Malkawi, Husam Manasrah
By MAJD HIJJAWI, MOMEN MALKAWI, and HUSAM MANASRAH   Photography by Majd Hijjawi An abandoned villa in Um Uthaina. This house is a remnant of a once affluent residential neighborhood in…
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May 6, 2025 at 9:17 AM
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Today on ArabLit: arablit.org/2025/01/27/o...
January 27, 2025 at 1:53 PM
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Read his "Bird with a Broken Wing," his second-ever published story. ❤️ arablit.org/2024/12/20/6...
January 22, 2025 at 11:40 AM
This is me! Read my intro and the rest of the amazing feature on Words Without Borders.
January 22, 2025 at 11:36 AM