Passage of Tears – a novel from Djibouti
A returning ex-pat, an espionage mission, a mysterious Islamist counter-intelligence figure locked away in Djibouti’s Devil’s Islands, a palimpsest of letters …
Tag Archives: Fiction
Götz and Meyer: A Serbian Tale of the Holocaust
David Albahari’s Götz and Meyer is simultaneously a story of horror and shame, and an amazing feat of language and …
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, …
El sueño del celta: Mario Vargas Llosa
Sir Roger Casement is one of the super-heroes of international human rights, and was so before such a phrase existed. …
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 …
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 …
All This Belongs to Me: A Novel of Mongolian Sisters; Or Is It?
I decided to take a break from the run of Arabic fiction I’ve been reading to catch up with a …
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: …
Contemporary Iraqi Fiction
A book of contemporary writers from Iraq should be a welcome corrective to the bias our current notions of Iraq …
“I Think of You” — Stories from Ahdaf Soueif, Egypt and England
Giving birth in a Muslim hospital where a sign in English reads, ‘Under no circumstance you must be alone with …
Arabic Literature as Windows into the Hearts of the Struggle
I long ago proved to myself that reading everything in the world, was impossible. I couldn’t even get through the …
Nawal El Saadawi: Still in the Mix in Cairo at 80
Nick Kristof in one of his posts from Tahrir Square in Cairo, talks about a hero of his, Dr. Nawal …