Zeina


Book Description

Distinguished literary critic Bodour is trapped in a loveless marriage and carries with her a dark secret. She fell in love in her youth and gave birth to an illegitimate daughter, Zeina, whom she abandoned on the streets of Cairo. Bodour doesn't know that Zeina has blossomed into one of Egypt's most beloved entertainers. Pining for her estranged daughter, she writes a fictional account of her life in an attempt to find solace. But as the revolution in Cairo begins to gain fire, the novel goes missing and Bodour must find who has stolen it. Will her hunt for the thief bring mother and daughter together? Or is Bodour destined to lose her daughter to Cairo forever?




Zeina


Book Description

New edition of classic novel about motherhood and resilience, set against the backdrop of revolution in Egypt, by the leading Arab feminist writer




I Remember Beirut


Book Description

Zeina Abirached, author of the award-winning graphic novel A Game for Swallows, returns with a powerful collection of wartime memories. Abirached was born in Lebanon in 1981. She grew up in Beirut as fighting between Christians and Muslims divided the city streets. Follow her past cars riddled with bullet holes, into taxi cabs that travel where buses refuse to go, and on outings to collect shrapnel from the sidewalk. With striking black-and-white artwork, Abirached recalls the details of ordinary life inside a war zone.




A Game for Swallows


Book Description

When Zeina was born, the civil war in Lebanon had been going on for six years, so it's just a normal part of life for her and her parents and her little brother. The city of Beirut is cut in two, separated by bricks and sandbags and threatened by snipers and shelling. East Beirut is for Christians, and West Beirut is for Muslims. When Zeina's parents don't return one afternoon from a visit to the other half of the city, and the bombing grows ever closer, the neighbors in her apartment house create a world indoors for Zeina and her brother where it's comfy and safe, where they can share cooking lessons and games and gossip. Together they try to make it through a dramatic day in the one place they hoped they would always be safehome. Zeina Abirached, born into a Lebanese Christian family in 1981, has collected her childhood recollections of Beirut in a warm story about the strength of family and community.




O


Book Description

NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2022 BY LIT HUB AND THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY “O is so full of music and passion for life . . . Zeina Hashem Beck’s poems unfold the abundance of our world.” —Ilya Kaminsky, author of Deaf Republic From a “brilliant, absolutely essential voice” whose “poems feel like whole worlds” (Naomi Shihab Nye), a poetry collection considering the body physical, the body politic, and the body sacred Zeina Hashem Beck writes at the intersection of the divine and the profane, where she crafts elegant, candid poems that simultaneously exude a boundless curiosity and a deep knowingness. Formally electrifying—from lyrics and triptychs to ghazals and Zeina's own duets, in which English and Arabic echo and contradict each other—O explores the limits of language, notions of home and exile, and stirring visions of motherhood, memory, and faith.




3arabi Song


Book Description




Bayna Bayna


Book Description

Using the Arabic words bayna bayna as a nod to her Palestinian Arab heritage, Zeina Azzam's poetry reflects on the feeling of being in-between home and exile, childhood and adulthood, wholeness and loss, and living and dying. Her poems express a bicultural and bilingual view of the world which is at once enriching, bewildering, and beautiful.




Cosmopolitan Radicalism


Book Description

Exploring visual culture, design and politics in 1960s Beirut, this compelling interdisciplinary study examines a critical period in Lebanon's history.




Zeina Starborn and the Sky Whale


Book Description

*Winner of the Northern Writers' Award 2020* 'A thrilling tale of intrigue and adventure in the clouds, full of wonderful creatures, mind-boggling gadgets, bravery, kindness and hope' Thomas Taylor, author of Malamander When Zeina Starborn's dream of exploring the skies becomes a reality, she finds herself in a daring adventure beyond her wildest imagination. Meet explorers, inventors, and mighty sky whales in this richly inventive fantasy, perfect for 9+ fans of BRIGHTSTORM and ORPHANS OF THE TIDE. Zeina Starborn spends her days dreaming of adventure in the sky and escaping the smog-filled city of Ravenport. So, when she wins the chance to visit the famous Willoughby Whale Hotel - a ginormous structure built on the back of a flying whale - Zeina grabs it. Even clashing with Jackson, spoiled heir to the Willoughby fortune, can't dampen her excitement. But a series of clues makes her question what she's been told about this dazzling world of inventors, explorers and mighty sky whales. Zeina and Jackson must put aside their differences to uncover the secret plot around them as they embark on the journey of a lifetime.




To Live in Autumn


Book Description

"Zeina Hashem Beck crafts a multifaceted portrait of the people and the streets of Beirut. Part love-letter, part elegy, Hashem Beck's debut collection keeps the city from becoming 'a shadow of a memory, / the memory of a shadow' for poet and reader both, offering us instead 'labyrinths / in which we get lost on purpose.' This collection is as vibrant and sensitive as its subject--the city that 'understands / not being tired of being.' Join me in an enthusiastic welcome for a compelling new voice in Anglophone poetry."--John Hennessy