The latest addition to my website is Sahar Khalifeh‘s رواية (Wild Thorns). Usama has been working in the Gulf states but has lost his job and is now returning home to the West Bank, nominally to get another job but also, possibly, to carry out a terrorist attack. He is horrified by what he finds … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Liana Badr‘s بوصلة من أجل عباد الشمس (Compass of the Sunflower). This was Badr’s first novel and we follow the story of a young Palestinian woman, Jinan, as various events – the 1967 war, Black September, the 1970 war and the Lebanese Civil War – which casue her … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Laila al-Atrash‘s :مرأة للفصول الخمسة، (A Woman of Five Seasons). The novel is set in Barquais, a fictitious country, clearly based on one of the Gulf states (to which many Palestinians emigrated after the Nakba). There is no mention in the text of any real Arab country, including … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Yasmin Zahran‘s A Beggar at Damascus Gate. An unnamed American, born in Beirut, visits Petra in the winter and finds in a cupboard in his room some notebooks. One notebook is in English, written by an Englishman, Alex, several others are in Arabic, written by Rayya, a Palestinian … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Vera Mutafchieva‘s Случаят Джем (The Case of Cem). After the sudden death of Mehmed II, known as Mehmed the Conqueror, his two sons vie for the throne. The elder son, Bayezid wins and his younger half-brother Cem Sultan is driven into exile. The story, narrated by a series … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Tsering Yangzom Lama‘s We Measure The Earth with Our Bodies. This is a (semi-)autobiographical novel about a family and village that flee Tibet when the Chinese take over and what happens to them. The four narrators are Lhamo, a child at the time, her younger sister Tenkyi, Lhamo’s … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Thuận‘s Chinatown : tiẻ̂u thuyé̂t (Chinatown). Our unnamed heroine spends the entire book on a Paris metro train which is held up by the investigation of a suspicious duffle bag, with her twelve-year old son asleep on her shoulder. She spends the time ruminating on her life. She … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Paulina Chiziane‘s Niketche: Uma História de Poligamia (Niketche : A Story of Polygamy; later: Fìrst Wife) . The key theme of this novel is polygamy, apparently still practised in Mozambique. Our heroine is Rami. She is married to Tony, a senior police officer and they have five children. … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Ali al-Muqri’s ‘s رواية (Hurma). It tells the story of how women are repressed in Yemen and their struggles to improve their lot. Our unnamed heroine has an older rebellious brother who soon changes and becomes a conformist when he marries. She also has an older sister who … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Mouna-Hodan Ahmed‘s Les Enfants du khat [The Children of Khat]. Asli is a twenty-twenty old Djiboutian woman. Her father, like alll too many men in Djibouti, is a serious user of khat a drug. He does not work and expects his wife to work – she sells khat- … Read more