Beirut, April 13th 1977… Exactly two years into the infamous civil war, Armenian photographer ‘Koko’ Krikorian is given an unusual assignment: meet up with freelance journalist Nader bin Nadeer in a remote Bekaa Valley village, to cover a conciliatory wedding aimed at ending a vendetta between warring tribes. However, Nadar – a brilliant but maverick […]
A beguiling, entrancing novel that tells the story of a prominent Egyptian family’s struggle to survive the turmoil of post-World War II Cairo.Gigi grew up in a wonderful house in Cairo, a house that was home to a large, extended family. The men of the house were involved in politics and business, cotton and trading, […]
The Granta Book of the African Short Story introduces a group of African writers described by its editor, Helon Habila, as ‘the post-nationalist generation’. Introducing a diverse and dazzling collection from all over the continent – from Morocco to Zimbabwe, Uganda to Kenya – Habila has focused on younger, newer writers, interspersed with some of […]
Set in the Nile-side neighborhood of Warraq, Aslan’s novel chronicles the daily rhythm of the life of rural migrants to Cairo and their complex webs of familial and neighborly relations over half a century. In an elliptical narrative, Aslan limns a series of vignettes that mimic the workings of memory, moving backward and forward in […]
In this second collection of writing based on his own dreams serialized in a Cairo magazine before his death in 2006, Egyptian Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz again displays his matchless ability to tell epic stories in uncannily terse form. We meet more of the real and unreal figures that filled the author’s life with glory […]
It is the summer of 1982 and Beirut is under siege. Eighteen-year-old Ivan’s parents have just been evacuated from the city with other members of the Palestine Liberation Organisation. Ivan stays on, interpreting for international medical volunteers in Sabra refugee camp by day, getting stoned with them by night, and working undercover for the PLO. […]
Under the intolerable mid-day sun a troupe of Bedouins set up camp on land previously ruled by desert creatures: long-legged rats, who bury themselves in tunnels to escape the heat, snakes who lurk in the shade, wise old tortoises, wolves, and armies of ants. As the humans begin to search for food, a battle for […]
A woman disappears without a trace. The police commissioner investigating the case enquires: was she of dubious morals, was she the rebellious sort? Nobody understand how a woman could simply walk away from it all, leaving husband and home behind. After all, in the ‘kingdom of oil’ where ‘His Majesty’ reigns supreme, no woman has […]