Egyptian Earth
29 January '14
As Doha Said
29 January '14
In Egypt a new era has dawned, but the dawn has taken an ominous turn. President Gamal Abdel Nasser has just proclaimed the first in a series of nationalization decrees, the stock exchange has shut down, and its parking attendant, Sayyid, is staring at penury. Across the street, the office of the Ministry’s Supervisory Board […]
Homesick
29 January '14
Banished from the sheltered idyll of his Beirut childhood, Toby Shadrach struggles to adapt to the treacherous new realities of a British boarding school. He begins to see a similar pattern of ritual and wild crazes between the school and the sectarian violence of the Middle East.
Balcony over the Fakihani
29 January '14
The title story of Liyana Badr’s remarkable collection of three short novellas interweaves the narratives of three Palestinians, two women and one man, relating their successive uprootings: from Palestine in 1948, from Jordan during Black September in 1970, to their final exile in Beirut.
Friendly Fire
29 January '14
The new book from Alaa Al Aswany, author of the international bestsellers The Yacoubian Building and Chicago Friendly Fire is a novella and collection of short stories from Alaa Al Aswany, author of the bestselling The Yacoubian Building. As in that novel, Al Aswany dissects modern Egyptian society and reveals with skill and detachment the […]
Old Ladies of Nazareth, The
29 January '14
In this lyrical journey Naim Attallah captures the purity and simplicity of these two old ladies lives, and evokes the sounds and smells of a small Palestinian town, unchanged through the ages. The old ladies’ qualities – courage, fortitude, determination, stoicism, and their loving kindness – shine out from these pages, a testament to a […]
Eye of the Mirror, The
29 January '14
Eros Island
29 January '14
As his father remains a recluse on a Spanish island, the narrator struggles to reconcile the secrets of his family’s past in the Middle East with the decadence, artifice and egotism of his friends: the gay hedonist Reaper; the famous artist Foley; and celebrity clothes-designer Skye.
Cities of Salt
29 January '14
Monumental five-volume chronicle, set in an unnamed Arab state of the Gulf, recounting the transformation of a traditional desert society following the discovery of oil. Saudi Arabia both banned the book and withdrew the author?s Saudi passport even though the late Munif always insisted the work was fiction.