The Mehlis Report – A Novel of Beirut
Since the world changed for Americans on Sept 11, 2001 I have made an effort to include fiction and history …
Tag Archives: Fiction:Arabic
Breaking Knees – Stories from Syria by Zakaria Tamer
Syria is in the news, unhappily. Citizens are fleeing the fighting and overwhelming the resources in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan. …
Cities of Salt: The Trench — The Pit in the Desert
Abdelrahman Munif‘s trilogy,* Cities of Salt is one of those era-defining efforts of literary imagination and craft. It has been called …
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 …
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 …
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. …
Contemporary Iraqi Fiction
A book of contemporary writers from Iraq should be a welcome corrective to the bias our current notions of Iraq …
The Long Way Back by Fuad al-Takarli: A Novel from Iraq
The ascension of Saddam Hussein to the peak of Iraqi power began in 1958 when a coup led by Brigadier …
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 …
More Arabic Fiction in Translation
As a follow up to my earlier posting of Arabic authors in English translation, as grass-roots democracy boils across the …
Egyptian, Tunisian, Lebanese and other Arabic Authors
Once again, convulsions in distant places are teaching us geography. It is also a good time to learn about the …