LAL has joined the Twittersphere. Follow @LibraryArabLit for regular updates on new books, upcoming events, and interviews with translators—and help us spread the word to others! Al-Shidyāq would probably want you to:

“I tell you, the world in your late grandfather’s and father’s day was not as it is now. In their day, there were no steamboats or railway tracks to bring close far-off tracts and create new pacts, to connect the disconnected, and make accessible what was once protected. Then, one didn’t have to learn many languages. It could be said of anyone who knew a few words of Turkish—Welcome, my lord! How nice to see you, my lord!—that he’d make a fine interpreter at the Imperial court.”

See you there!