Mazen Maarouf: Jokes for gunmen under camera surveillance
– Palestine
Mazen Maarouf (* 1978) is a Palestinian-Icelandic writer, poet, translator and journalist. He was born in Beirut and currently lives in Reykjavík and Beirut. Before devoting himself fully to literary and journalistic work in 2001, he worked as a chemistry and physics teacher for several years. He made his debut as a poet – in 2001 he published collection Our Ka'ana haznana khubz (Our Grief Resembles Bread, كأس حزننا خبز). In 2011, he published his second collection, Alkamira la taltaqit aleasafir (The Camera Doesn’t Capture Birds, الكاميرا لا تلتقط العصافير), and a year later, his third, Mulak ealaa habl ghasil (2012, An Angel Suspended on a Clothesline, ملاك على حبل غسيل). Many of his poems have been translated into other languages, for example, English, Spanish, Italian, Icelandic, Norwegian, Maltese, Urdu and Chinese.
Maarouf also writes art criticism, reviews and opinions for Arabic newspapers and magazines. He translates poems, novels and short stories from Icelandic into Arabic. In 2015, he won the LiteratureLana Prize for poetry in Italy and a year later the Al-Multaqa Prize for his short story collection Nikat lilmusalahin (2015, Jokes for the Gunmen, نكات للمسلحين). The collection was also shortlisted for the 2019 Man Booker Prize, the Edinburgh Booker Festival Award and the Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize.