A Cairo Anthology
20 October '14
Cairo has for centuries been recognized as one of the great cities of the world, and this anthology brings together travelers’ descriptions of it over the centuries-from the comments of Herodotus to those of Julian Huxley. Perhaps more than anything else in the city, the wonderful mosques with their tall minarets have been admired and […]
Women Travelers in Egypt
20 October '14
Until late in the nineteenth century, few guidebooks acknowledged the presence of women as travelers-although women had been traveling around the world for centuries. Women’s accounts of their journeys, distinct from those of male travelers, began to appear more frequently in the early nineteenth century, and Egypt was a popular destination. From Eliza Fay’s description […]
Leg Over Leg: Volume Three
20 October '14
Leg over Leg recounts the life, from birth to middle age, of ‘the Fariyaq,’ alter ego of Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq, a pivotal figure in the intellectual and literary history of the modern Arab world. The always edifying and often hilarious adventures of the Fariyaq, as he moves from his native Lebanon to Egypt, Malta, Tunis, […]
Leg Over Leg: Volume Four
20 October '14
Leg over Leg recounts the life, from birth to middle age, of ‘the Fariyaq,’ alter ego of Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq, a pivotal figure in the intellectual and literary history of the modern Arab world. The always edifying and often hilarious adventures of the Fariyaq, as he moves from his native Lebanon to Egypt, Malta, Tunis, […]
At the Drop of a Veil
13 October '14
In 1945 Marianne Alireza moved to Saudi Arabia with her new husband. Suddenly she was a member of a wealthy and prominent Arabian family, veiled and cloaked like a biblical figure, visiting a king’s desert encampment, thousands of miles and two hundred years from home. This is the story of her 12 years in a […]
Far Arabia: Explorers of the Myth
13 October '14
Jeddah Childhood Circa 1994
13 October '14
‘Jeddah Childhood circa 1994’ is a mini-novella about a teenage boy growing up in Saudi Arabia. Taking the form of a diary, it evokes a moment of cultural schizophrenia, when the Grunge movement with its thrift store aesthetic took over the malls and bedrooms of the Arab Gulf and the Middle East. Soon after came […]