Best Of New Arabic Fiction, The
29 January '14
Extracts from the shortlisted novels for the 2010 International Prize for Arabic Fiction
Like a Summer Never to Be Repeated
29 January '14
Like a Summer Never to be Repeated is a fascinating and highly experimental story based loosely around the author’s own experiences in Egypt as a student and visiting intellectual. Set in Cairo, the narrator, Hammad, takes us on a deeply personal journey of discovery from the heady days of the 1950s and 1960s, with all […]
Remeber Me to Lebanon
29 January '14
Evelyn Shakir crafts tales that are rich in history and cultural detail, setting her stories in different eras, from the 1960s to the present and carrying us back, on occasion, to the turn of the twentieth century. Each in their own way, Shakir’s first- and second-generation women work either to reclaim their Lebanese heritage or […]
Wild Mulberries
29 January '14
Wild Mulberries is the story of Sarah, the adolescent daughter of a Lebanese sheikh in the 1930s. Although the area has seen financial hardship because of a sharp decline in the price of silk, Sarah’s father insists on raising silk worms. His rigid dedication to the traditional method of silk production angers members of the […]
Dreams from the Endz
29 January '14
Dreams from the Endz is the story of twenty-four Ahlème, who is spirited, sassy and wise but has more problems than she knows how to deal with. Her father, The Boss, is permanently disabled after an accident on a building site, her sixteen-year-old brother, Foued, has been permanently excluded from school and seems intent on […]
German Mujahid, The
29 January '14
Based on a true story and inspired by the work of Primo Levi, The German Mujahid is a heartfelt reflection on guilt and the harsh imperatives of history. The two brothers Schiller, Rachel and Malrich, couldn’t be more dissimilar. They were born in a small village in Algeria to a German father and an Algerian […]
Chicago
29 January '14
Lake Beyond the Wind, A
29 January '14
The year is 1948; the place, Samakh, a small town on Lake Tiberias, north of Jerusalem. People in Samakh are waiting — for what, exactly, they do not yet know. The whistle of the Haifa-Deraa train doesn’t sound anymore. Abd al-Karim, the shopkeeper, no longer goes into the city to buy new stock. “You townspeople,” […]
Scatterd Like Seeds
29 January '14
Thafer Allam finds his return to his homeland of Palestine wrought with difficulty after years of living in America, attempting to reconcile his roots with his ties to the West. This historical novel describes the tensions and cultural bonds that shaped the lives of Palestinians in exile.
Wolf Dreams
29 January '14
How does a handsome young man who keeps company with poets and dreams of fame and fortune in the movie business become a brutal killer who massacres women and children without turning a hair? “Wolf Dreams” reveals this transformation in a novel of unflinching detail and commanding prose. The story follows Nafa Walid, heart-throb of […]