Welcome to The Feminist Bibliothecary’s Lite Reads, where we read a different short story every week, and then discuss it here and on social media. Chosen especially for the Halloween season, this week’s Lite Reads selection is The Spider’s Widow by Houyem Ferchichi, translated from Arabic by Ali Znaidi!
The Spider’s Widow by Houyem Ferchichi was published by Samovar (a quarterly special issue of Strange Horizons) in 2019 in both the original Arabic and in English as translated by Ali Znaidi. This short folk horror story tells the tale of an unusual spider living near a community. Samovar includes a helpful list of content warnings for the story: Body transformation, Death/dying, Murder, Sexism/gender discrimination, Spiders/insects, Violence/combat.
From the Samovar author’s bio: “Houyem Ferchichi is a Tunisian literary journalist and short story writer. Her short stories have been published in numerous Tunisian and Arabic literary magazines. Her short story collections include The Scene and the Shadow, and Secret Tattoos, and she has written a book of criticism on Youssef Rzouga’s poetry.”
You can read The Spider’s Widow by Houyem Ferchichi online for free on Samovar, in English and in Arabic. There is no audio version available, and I apologise for any difficulties this causes.
Join us in the comments section here, or on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, or Instagram, to participate in discussions throughout the week. You can also join in on the discussion at Litsy by following @elizabethlk and the #litereads hashtag. Our full review will be available Saturday, October 31. As this past week ended up unintentionally being a double week, we will have our final spooky season selection during the first week of November.
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