Middle East Literature

In this turbulent novel of shame, violence, and hypocritical morality, the adolescent son of a repudiated mother grows up in a hostile, erotic, bourgeois world, where he must fight for his    More >

After many years abroad, Brahim, the author of stories about a detective (alter-ego) named Ali, returns to Morocco with his pregnant Scottish wife and two sons. Soon to join them are his    More >

Setting his novel during World War II, Chraïbi opens the door on the protected and well-to- do world of an Arab woman whose role in society is restricted to that of wife and mother. At    More >

The dehumanization of the Arabs who emigrated to "Mother France" is the subject of Chraïbi’s second novel, echoing Simple Past. This time, however, the focus is more on    More >

The first book in a trilogy that continues with Mother Spring and Birth at Dawn, this naturalistic allegory is about two Arabic-speaking police officers who set out in the Atlas Mountains in    More >

Beginning with an epilogue set in the present, this novel quickly moves back to the time of the generation after Muhammad—a time when North Africa, the home of the Berber peoples, was    More >

The final volume in a trilogy that includes The Flutes of Death and Mother Spring, Birth at Dawn extends to the eighth century the story of the arrival of Islam in Morocco and Algeria. First    More >

It is the 26th day of Ramadan in the year 610, and a handsome man named Muhammad is meditating in a cave on Mount Hira. Fear grips him as he tries to sort out the visions and voices washing    More >

Poems of home and exile by Fouzi El-Asmar, a Palestinian poet and journalist. Most selections are presented in dual English/Arabic text.    More >

A vivid portrait of the lives of the Egyptian poor, particularly in the Nile Delta region, emerges in this collection of 24 short stories. El-Bisatie offers glimpses of the daily struggles    More >

The poems in this powerful bilingual collection range from the rhetorical lyricism of Tawfiq Zayyad to the complex, cosmic imagery of Walid al-Halis, from the romantic idiom of Salma    More >

Assembled in this volume are the Arabic and English texts of the three long poems that make up Hawi's Bayadir al-ju [The Threshing Floors of Hunger], The Cave, The Genie of the Beach, and    More >

These powerful stories were written between 1947, when Pakistan was created, and 1971, when it was fragmented by the creation of Bangladesh as an independent nation. Steeped in an    More >

Tawfiq al-Hakim (1898-1987) dedicated much of his long life to a fruitful attempt to advance the fortunes of twentieth century Arabic literature by writing it. This guide to his work    More >

A woman abandons her newborn baby in a ditch. Soon discovered, the corpse arouses in the local peasants an intense desire to bring the killer to justice—and gives them the excuse to    More >