Beirut '75


Book Description

In Lebanon during the war, the lives of five strangers brought together by a communal taxi ride. The protagonists include a woman who gives up teaching in a convent to become a man's mistress, an unemployed individual who becomes a thief, and a fisherman who wants his son to stop studying and enter the family business.




The Night of the First Billion


Book Description

Set in Geneva, Switzerland, around the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, this intricately plotted novel probes the emotional misfortunes of Arab men and women fleeing the horror of war only to find their ways of life constantly challenged by their foreign surroundings. The author's scalding critique of the Lebanese situation resonates with strong sociopolitical issues. Here are telling portraits of class oppression and the role of women in Arab society, the treatments of war and sexuality, of immigration, of cultural assimilation and nationalism. With supreme artistry and insight—and in modern Arab literary fashion—Ghada Samman skillfully blends realism with fantasy into a highly stylized, thematically multilayered tale. It is at once a Gothic romance and a suspenseful whodunit with engaging characters. At the same time it is a gripping study of social injustice and the consequences of wartime upheaval. Far from home and out of harm's way, Samman's Lebanese exiles repeat and replay the very same conflicts that torment them in their own land even as it is under siege. The Night of the First Billion is an eloquent reminder that the only genuine security in the most profound and human sense of the word is to be found in the courageous willingness to confront, challenge, and finally to ease suffering.




Woman at Point Zero


Book Description

Internationally acclaimed Egyptian feminist writer Nawal El Saadawi's landmark novel Woman at Point Zero, published here with a new foreword. Firdaus is on death row. Her crime, the murder of a man. Born into poverty in a rural Egyptian village, her childhood dreams and ambitions had been met with neglect and abuse by the world and the men who rule it. Driven to sex work to support herself, she is faced with the moral outrage of society and the bitter knowledge that for a woman, true freedom comes only when all hope is abandoned. In Woman at Point Zero, Firdaus tells her unforgettable story. Woman at Point Zero is also available in audiobook format from audiobook retailers.




Ghada Al-samman's Beirut '75


Book Description

In Beirut '75, Ghada al-Samman shockingly depicts the tragic lives of fictitious characters who find themselves in Beirut, Lebanon prior to the outbreak of the war. Heralded by many critics as being a work that prophesied the Lebanese civil war, Beirut '75 is instead a work that expresses the existential and political views of its author and not the complete reality of the socio-political situation at that critical moment in Lebanese history. Even though Ghada al-Samman argues that the work is not autobiographical and that she does not profess any particular political stance, the work is permeated with her political views and her own personal life experience. The city of Beirut, torn between the East and the West, can even be viewed as a metaphor for the author herself.




Farewell Damascus


Book Description

A Farewell to Damascus is both a paean to a beloved homeland, and an ode to human dignity.




Days of Ignorance


Book Description

Is he dead? Medina, Saudi Arabia. A young man, Malek, has been brutally attacked for being of the 'wrong' race. Malek's lover, Leen, waits by his bedside and reflects on their relationship and her life as an unmarried, childless woman. All around her are voices of judgment and concern; in the twenty-first century it is still unforgivable, and dangerous, for a Saudi woman to enter into a relationship with a black man. In the distance US planes hover over Iraq, primed to embark on yet another senseless conflict. Malek's attacker was Leen's brother. Flinging wide a window onto the second holiest Islamic city – a city in which people observe daily prayers and preach equality and justice – Days of Ignorance is a novel about honour, hypocrisy, war and fear. And, glimmering beyond, beneath and behind it all, love.




Women and the War Story


Book Description

In a book that radically and fundamentally revises the way we think about war, Miriam Cooke charts the emerging tradition of women's contributions to what she calls the "War Story," a genre formerly reserved for men. Concentrating on the contemporary literature of the Arab world, Cooke looks at how alternatives to the master narrative challenge the authority of experience and the permission to write. She shows how women who write themselves and their experiences into the War Story undo the masculine contract with violence, sexuality, and glory. There is no single War Story, Cooke concludes; the standard narrative—and with it the way we think about and conduct war—can be changed. As the traditional time, space, organization, and representation of war have shifted, so have ways of describing it. As drug wars, civil wars, gang wars, and ideological wars have moved into neighborhoods and homes, the line between combat zones and safe zones has blurred. Cooke shows how women's stories contest the acceptance of a dyadically structured world and break down the easy oppositions—home vs. front, civilian vs. combatant, war vs. peace, victory vs. defeat—that have framed, and ultimately promoted, war.




All That's Left to You


Book Description

The vivid story of twenty-four hours in the real and remembered lives of a brother and sister living in Gaza and separated from their family. Ghassan Kanafani’s writings are among the most influential in modern Palestinian literature. In his novels, short stories, and plays, he explores complex political questions encased in beautiful narratives and lyrical prose. All That's Left to You presents the vivid story of twenty-four hours in the real and remembered lives of a brother and sister living in Gaza and separated from their family. The desert and time emerge as characters as Kanafani speaks through the desert, the brother, and the sister to build the powerful rhythm of the narrative. The Palestinian attachment to land and family, and the sorrow over their loss, are symbolized by the young man’s unremitting anger and shame over his sister’s sexual disgrace. This remarkable collection of stories provides evidence to the English-reading public of Kanafani’s position within modern Arabic literature. Not only was he committed to portraying the miseries and aspirations of his people, the Palestinians, in whose cause he died, but he was also an innovator within the extensive world of Arabic fiction.




Maroun Abboud


Book Description

In Lebanese scholarship and literature, Maroun Abboud is undoubtedly the pioneer of Realism and Pragmatism, a movement which he successfully led and which shed new light on the trend of writing which dedicated itself to the village and the life of the villagers and peasants. Abboud's writings, which were entirely dedicated to village life, stand as a decisive landmark that established a bridge between the old descriptions of country life and the new outlook concerning life in the village. There is definitely a marked difference between what we read about the Lebanese village or any village anywhere else in the rural Middle East and North Africa before and after Maroun Abboud. Yes, Abboud praises the beauty, serenity, and simplicity of the village, but he makes it clear that these qualities, which idealize the village, are not enough to enhance the villagers' daily life and that such descriptions and adjectives belong in poems, romantic stories, and songs chanted in the capital far away from the reality and true hardships of the village life.This book takes you on a journey in time between two worlds: the ancient and the contemporary. It comes full circle and is actually a quest for self-fulfillment and spiritual enlightenment. It is part history and part autobiography. It is also immersed in superstitions, mythology, religious liturgy, and church rituals. Whether you are a casual reader, a dedicated student, a government official, a simple villager, or a sophisticated city dweller, the book will educate you about the bittersweet realities of life in the village.




Islamic Jurisprudence According to the Four Sunni Schools


Book Description

A translation of the first of four volumes, this detailed reference provides the four legal views of Islamic acts of worship according to the interpretations of more recent traditionalists rather than from a medieval perspective. Dealing with the forms of worship, the volume elucidates the laws concerning ritual purity, ritual prayers, fasting, spiritual retreats, and the pilgrimage to Mecca which are discussed in-depth. A comprehensive glossary of Islamic terminology is also included, making this foundational text an ideal selection for academic libraries or individuals interested in an essential manual for the performance of religious duties of Islam.