Alone and impoverished, as the prince’s dynasty is displaced by the Shah of Iran in the 1970s, she weaves carpets to make money, cares for her children and communes with the ghost of a dead young girl, killed when her shameful pregnancy was discovered by her family, who is buried under a tree in her […]
Perhaps the most famous short story by Kanafani, about three Palestinians who attempt to escape to Kuwait in the tank of a water truck. The characters represent three different generations. In the end they perish in the journey across the desert. A major figure in Palestinian literature, and influential for the modernising techniques in his […]
The first anthology of its kind in the West, Contemporary Iraqi Fiction gathers work from sixteen Iraqi writers, all translated from Arabic. Shedding a bright light on the rich diversity of Iraqi experience, Shakir Mustafa has included selections by Iraqi women, Iraqi Jews now living in Israel, and Christians and Muslims living both in Iraq […]
The novelist’s camera pans from the dome of King Fuad University (now Cairo University) to students streaming out of the campus, focusing on four students in their twenties, each representing a different trend in Egypt in the 1930s. Finally the camera comes to rest on Mahgub Abd al-Da’im. A scamp, he fancies himself a nihilist, […]
Already widely known in the Gulf region, the stories in Oranges in the Sun are now available in English for the first time. Tales of hope and love, bereavement and acceptance, wonder and dismay reflect the new challenges confronting traditional tribal societies. Topics range from class struggle to immigration to the first Gulf War to […]