The girls of Riyadh are young, attractive and living by Saudi Arabia’s strict cultural traditions. Well, not quite. In-between sneaking out behind their parents’ backs, dating, shopping, watching American TV and having fun, they’re still trying to be good little Muslim girls. That is, pleasing their families and their men. But can you be a […]
Tucked away in a rundown quarter, just out of sight of fashionable downtown Cairo, a group of intellectuals gathers regularly to smoke hashish in Hakeem’s den. The den is the center of their lives, both a refuge and a stimulus, and at the center of the den is the remarkable man who keeps their hashish […]
This beautifully written and compelling novel is a tale of two Palestinian brothers, one full of anger and hate, the other trying to build a bridge through scientific endeavour. The book vividly brings to life the everyday experiences of Palestinians displaced by the Israeli occupation. The first person narrative draws the reader into the story […]
A teenager who wants to be a journalist in a suppressed society describes to his diary his daily life in his hometown of Damascus, Syria.
Before becoming the prophet of Islam, Mohammed was a simple man of flesh and blood who started life as a poor orphan in the Arabian city of Mecca. Through his union with Khadija, he became a prosperous merchant and caravaneer. He was visited by God at the age of forty to become a prophet and […]
‘Amina Zaydan is a robust,mature writer with a highly developed narrative technique’ – Al-Ahram Weekly Suzie Mohammed Galal, born in the Egyptian city of Suez during the War of Attrition in the late 1960s, is a woman of inner conflicts, at once a fighter and a lover, who traverses the boundaries of ethnicity and religion. […]
Set in the 5th century AD, Azazeel is the exquisitely crafted tale of a Coptic monk’s journey from Upper Egypt to Alexandria and then Syria during a time of massive upheaval in the early Church. The monk, Hypa, embarks on a journey both physical and spiritual, encountering, the devil, Azazeel, and the hardship of severe […]
Translated with supreme eloquence and sensitivity, this final work by Jabra Ibrahim Jabra is affirmative yet unsettling in its theme of salvation in the face of inevitable loss, alienation, and exile. Jabra tells his love story through alternating journal entries and with a complex layering of voices, revealing how a love affair takes shape through […]