Join us for a special evening with author Maan Abu Taleb as he discusses his new book, All the Battles. Abu Taleb will be in conversation with translator Robin Moger.

All the Battles centres around Said, Said leads a comfortable, yet boring, middle-class life. That is, until one afternoon, he leaves work early and crosses into the rough side of town, in search of a run-down boxing club. His obsession with this underground sport grows: he starts skipping work and showing up with visible injuries. Things begin to unravel as he quits his job, trains full time, and is entered for the fight of his life. Will this be the making of him, or is it the end of the road? Maan Abu Taleb’s stylish debut novel is beautifully observed and carefully paced. Far from being a celebration of machismo, All the Battles approaches the pervasive presence of violence in society with nuance and grace.

Maan Abu Taleb is the founding editor of Ma3azef, the Arab world’s leading online music magazine, and he holds a master’s degree in philosophy and contemporary critical theory. Born and raised in Amman, Jordan, he now lives in London, UK.

Robin Moger is the translator of Otared by Mohammad Rabie and Women of Karantina by Nael Eltoukhy, among other books. His translation for Writing Revolution won the 2013 English PEN Award for outstanding writing in translation. He lives in Cape Town, South Africa.

Professor Wen-chin Ouyang is Professor of Arabic and Comparative Literature at SOAS, University of London. She has published extensively on classical and modern Arabic literature and the Arabian Nights, and is at present a judge for the 2017 Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation.

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