Turkey: April 23 Children’s Day Festival
The main street of Antalya, Turkey is flooded with children dressed in red and white, or in the case of …
Category Archives: Middle East
Snow: A Novel from Turkey – Orhan Pamuk
Snow in Turkey? And for three days, non stop? Who from the lands outside the greater Middle East would imagine …
Anatomy of a Disappearance: A Novel by Hisham Matar
Hisham Matar’s second novel, Anatomy of a Disappearance, easily matches the promise of his first, In The Country of Men, …
Arabic Novels from the Younger Generation
I was pleased to see strong attention in the New York Times Book Review of September 11, 2011 being paid …
Alhaam: A Film from Iraq — 2005
Alhaam, a movie shot in Iraq in 2004 — during the full catastrophe of the US invasion and related Iraqi …
Emerging Arab Voices: A Bilingual Reader
I’ve been immersing myself in translated Arabic writing these past months, from novels, to movies, to short story and poetry …
Inch’ Allah Dimanche: Algerian Immigrants to France
Immigration is big in the news these days – mostly the opposition to it– around the world. It is absolutely …
The Devil You Don’t Know: Going Back to Iraq — Zuhair Al-Jezairy
Iraq is, in the words of Zuhair al-Jezairy in The Devil You Don’t Know, his memoir/reportage of returning there after 25 …
Saqi Books: History, Fiction and Food from the Middle World
I’ve come across a very lively publisher of Arabic, Farsi and Turkish translations to English, histories of the region, biographies, …
The Map of Love – Ahdaf Soueif, Egypt & England
Adhaf Soueif, of Egptian and British heritage and upbringing has set herself a formidable task in The Map of Love: …
In The Country of Men – Hisham Matar, Libya
The news from Libya this month is increasingly grim. It turns out it is extremely difficult merely to protect civilians. …
Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes
I’ve had the pleasure of reading (actually, listening to) Bay Area author Tamim Ansary’s Destiny Disrupted: A History of the …