Celebrate Arab American Heritage Month with These Adult Fiction Titles

In East Jerusalem Noir--published simultaneously with West Jerusalem Noir--the Akashic Noir Series turns its gaze to one of the world's most fascinating locales, in this volume from the perspective of Palestinian writers; translated from Arabic. When you move through the streets of Jerusalem today, you will notice that history surrounds you from all sides. You hear Adhan, the Islamic call to prayer, recited by the muezzin from the Dome of the Rock; you hear the bells of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where the Christians pray, accompanied by the voices of the Jewish worshippers at the Wailing Wall. You are filled with awe and stand helpless to do anything except feel both joy and sadness at the same time. Your feelings mingle, your thoughts get confused, and you peer at the sky waiting for God's mercy and relief . . . The stories here are varied, and I did not interfere with the writers' content. I asked them to portray the city of Jerusalem as they live it, as they feel it, as they appreciate it, as they fear it, as they want it to be, and as they imagine it in the past, the present, and the future . . . And now we put the black box in your hands! Kindly open it to reveal the secrets of Jerusalem and its people, who wake up to the sound of a forgotten rooster from a previous era to declare the beginning of a new dawn, so that life will not stop recording its new diary entries.

"Short stories from 25 emerging and established writers of Middle Eastern and North African origins, a unique collection of voices and viewpoints that illuminate life in the global Arab/Muslim world. Stories from the Center of the World gathers new writing from the Greater Middle East, a vast region that stretches from Southwest Asia, through the Middle East and Turkey, and across Northern Africa. The 25 authors included here are either native to the region, or part of a diasporic community, a diverse mix of men and women, queer and straight, who come from a wide range of cultures and countries, including Palestine, Syria, Pakistan, Iran, Lebanon, Egypt, and Morocco, to name a few. Selected from among a wave of new fiction published in The Markaz Review, this "best of" collection features both well-established and emerging writers, some being published in English for the first time. The stories span a number of styles and genres, from literary fiction to sci-fi, epistolary to noir. In "Asha and Haaji," Hanif Kureishi takes up the cause of outsiders who become uprooted when war or disaster strikes and they flee for safe haven. In Nektar Anastasiadou's "The Location of the Soul According to Benyamin Alhadeff," two students in Istanbul from different classes - and religions that have often been at odds with one another - believe they can overcome all obstacles. MK Harb's story, "Counter Strike," is about queer love among Beiruti adolescents; and Salar Abdoh's "The Roots of Heaven" invites us into the world of former militants, fighters who fought ISIS or Daesh in Iraq and Syria, who are having a hard time readjusting to civilian life. In "Eleazar," Karim Kattan tells an unexpected Palestinian story in which the usual antagonists - Israeli occupation forces - are mostly absent, while another malevolent force seems to overtake an unsuspecting family. Omar El Akkad's "The Icarist" is a coming-of-age story about the underworld in which illegal immigrants are forced to live, and what happens when one dares to break away. The Markaz Review, an online journal of literature and the arts, was founded in 2020 with a mission to showcase work from a cultural region that's often overlooked or misrepresented. Here, we get a different viewpoint. Moving from the margins to the center, or the markaz -a word and a concept shared among languages and cultures of the region - the writers featured here establish a worldview that highlights the vanguard creativity and humanity of the various populations represented in their stories"-- Provided by publisher.

"A mysterious burnt corpse appears one morning in Saraaya, a remote border town between northern and southern Sudan. For five strangers on an NGO compound, the discovery foreshadows trouble to come. South Sudanese translator William connects the corpse to the sudden disappearance of cook Layla, a northern nomad with whom he's fallen in love. Meanwhile, Sudanese American filmmaker Dena struggles to connect to her unfamiliar homeland, and white midwestern aid worker Alex finds his plans thwarted by a changing climate and looming civil war. Dancing between the adults is Mustafa, a clever, endearing twelve-year-old, whose schemes to rise out of poverty set off cataclysmic events on the compound. Amid the paradoxes of identity, art, humanitarian aid, and a territory riven by conflict, William, Layla, Dena, Alex, and Mustafa must forge bonds stronger than blood or identity. Weaving a sweeping history of the breakup of Sudan into the lives of these captivating characters, Fatin Abbas explores the porous and perilous nature of borders-whether they be national, ethnic, or religious-and the profound consequences for those who cross them. Ghost Season is a gripping, vivid debut that announces Abbas as a powerful new voice in fiction"-- Provided by publisher.

"A deeply moving family story about identity, faith, and belonging set in the Muslim immigrant enclave of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn following three siblings coming of age over the course of one Ramadan. It's the holy month of Ramadan, and twin sisters Amira and Lina are about to graduate high school in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. On the precipice of adulthood, they plan to embark on a summer of teenage revelry, trying on new identities and testing the limits of what they can get away with while still under their parents' roof. But the twins' expectations of a summer of freedom collide with their older brother's return from prison, whose mysterious behavior threatens to undo the delicate family balance. Meanwhile, outside the family's apartment, a storm is brewing in Bay Ridge. A raid on a local business sparks a protest that brings the Arab community together, and a senseless act of violence threatens to tear them apart. Everyone's motives are called into question as an alarming sense of disquiet pervades the neighborhood. With everything spiraling out of control, how will Amira and Lina know who they can trust? A gorgeously written, intimate family story and a polyphonic portrait of life under the specter of Islamophobia, Between Two Moons challenges the reader to interrogate their own assumptions, asking questions of allegiance to faith, family, and community, and what it means to be a young Muslim in America"-- Provided by publisher.

"After fleeing a patricidal prince, legendary merchant Loulie al-Nazari and banished prince Mazen bin Malik find themselves in the realm of jinn. But instead of sanctuary, they find a world on the cusp of collapse. The jinn cities, long sheltered beneath the Sandsea by the magic of its kings, are sinking. Amid the turmoil, political alliances are forming, and rebellion is on the rise. When Loulie assists a dissenter-one of her bodyguard's old comrades-she puts herself in the center of a centuries-old war. Trapped in a world that isn't her own and wielding magic that belongs to a fallen king, Loulie must decide: Will she carry on someone else's legacy or carve out her own?"-- Provided by publisher.

"Loulie al-Nazari is the Midnight Merchant: a criminal who, with the help of her jinn bodyguard, hunts and sells illegal magic. When she saves the life of a cowardly prince, she draws the attention of his powerful father, the sultan, who blackmails her into finding an ancient lamp that has the power to revive the barren land-at the cost of sacrificing all jinn. With no choice but to obey or be executed, Loulie journeys with the sultan's oldest son to find the artifact. Aided by her bodyguard, who has secrets of his own, they must survive ghoul attacks, outwit a vengeful jinn queen, and confront a malicious killer from Loulie's past. And, in a world where story is reality and illusion is truth, Loulie will discover that everything-her enemy, her magic, even her own past-is not what it seems, and she must decide who she will become in this new reality"-- Provided by publisher.

"When Salma, Moni, and Iman-friends and active members of their local Muslim Women's group-decide to take a road trip together to the Scottish Highlands, they leave behind lives often dominated by obligation, frustrated desire, and dull predictability. Each wants something more out of life, but fears the cost of taking it. Salma is successful and happily married, but tempted to risk it all when she's contacted by her first love back in Egypt; Moni gave up a career in banking to care for her disabled son without the help of her indifferent husband; and Iman, in her twenties and already on her third marriage, longs for the freedom and autonomy she's never known. When the women are visited by the Hoopoe, a sacred bird from Muslim and Celtic literature, they are compelled to question their relationships to faith and femininity, love, loyalty, and sacrifice"-- Provided by publisher.

"This enchanting and eye-opening new novel from Caine Prize winner Leila Aboulela follows an embattled young woman coming of age during the Mahdist War in nineteenth-century Sudan, and illuminates the tensions that shape her course: between Britain and Sudan, Christianity and Islam, colonizer and colonized. In River Spirit, Aboulela gives us the unforgettable story of a people who--against the odds and for a brief time--gained independence from foreign rule through their willpower, subterfuge, and sacrifice"-- Dust jacket flap.

"A sweeping and lyrical novel that follows a young Palestinian refugee as she slowly becomes radicalized while searching for a better life for her family throughout the Middle East ... As Nahr sits, locked away in solitary confinement, she spends her days reflecting on the dramatic events that landed her in prison in a country she barely knows. Born in Kuwait in the 70s to Palestinian refugees, she dreamed of falling in love with the perfect man, raising children, and possibly opening her own beauty salon. Instead, the man she thinks she loves jilts her after a brief marriage, her family teeters on the brink of poverty, she's forced to prostitute herself, and the US invasion of Iraq makes her a refugee, as her parents had been. After trekking through another temporary home in Jordan, she lands in Palestine, where she finally makes a home, falls in love, and her destiny unfolds under Israeli occupation."-- Description from Goodreads. https://web.archive.org/web/20210109210710/https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52761023-against-the-loveless-world

"Our Riches celebrates quixotic devotion and the love of books in the person of Edmond Charlot, who at the age of twenty founded Les Vraies Richesses (Our True Wealth), the famous Algerian bookstore/publishing house/lending library. He more than fulfilled its motto 'by the young, for the young', discovering the twenty-four-year-old Albert Camus in 1937. His entire archive was twice destroyed by the French colonial forces, but despite financial difficulties (he was hopelessly generous) and the vicissitudes of wars and revolutions, Charlot (often compared to the legendary bookseller Sylvia Beach) carried forward Les Vraies Richesses as a cultural hub of Algiers. Our Riches interweaves Charlot's story with that of another twenty-year-old, Ryad (dispatched in 2017 to empty the old shop and repaint it). Ryad's no booklover, but old Abdallah, the bookshop's self-appointed, nearly illiterate guardian, opens the young man's mind. Cutting brilliantly from Charlot to Ryad, from the 1930s to current times, from WWII to the bloody 1961 Free Algeria demonstrations in Paris, Adimi delicately packs a monumental history of intense political drama into her swift and poignant novel. But most of all, it's a hymn to the book and to the love of books."-- Provided by publisher.

"The lives of two women living centuries apart are connected by an enigmatic painting in this mesmerizing debut based on historical events. Art historian, Yasmine, is restoring an unsigned portrait of a strikingly beautiful girl from the Napoleonic Era, when she discovers that the artist has embedded a lock of hair into the painting, something highly unusual. The mysterious painting came into the museum's possession without record, and Yasmine becomes consumed by the secret concealed within this captivating work. Meanwhile, at the close of the French Campaign in Egypt, sixteen-year-old Zeinab, the daughter of a prominent sheikh, is drawn into French high society when Napoleon himself requests her presence. Enamored by the foreign customs of the Europeans, she finds herself on a dangerous path, one that may ostracize her from her family and culture. Seamlessly merging fiction with history, art, and politics, modern day Cairo with its opulent past, this compelling story of two women caught between worlds and entangled in matters of the heart launches an entrancing new literary voice."--Provided by publisher

"Amira Valdez's adventures continue in the sequel to The Sentient, as she finds herself in unprecedented danger. The ruthless new leader of the fundamentalist Trinity Compound seeks to understand his strange neurological connection with Amira and unleashan army on an unstable North America. The first human clone has been born, but thanks to the mysterious scientist Tony Barlow, it may unlock the secret to human immortality - or disaster. Together, Amira and Barlow form an uneasy alliance in pursuit of scientific breakthroughs and protection from shared enemies. But new discoveries uncover dark secrets that Barlow wants to keep hidden"-- Provided by publisher.

"Amira Valdez is a brilliant neuroscientist trying to put her past on a religious compound behind her. But when she's assigned to a controversial cloning project, her dreams of working in space are placed in jeopardy. Using her talents as a reader of memories, Amira uncovers a conspiracy to stop the creation of the first human clone - at all costs. As she unravels the mystery, Amira navigates a dangerous world populated by anti-cloning militants, scientists with hidden agendas, and a mysterious New Age movement. In the process, Amira uncovers an even darker secret, one that forces her to confront her own past."--Publisher.

"Bani Adam has known all his life what was expected of him. To marry the right kind of girl. To make the House of Adam proud. But Bani wanted more than this -- he wanted to make his own choices. Being the first in his Australian Muslim family to go to university, he could see a different way. Years later, Bani will write his story to his son, Kahlil. Telling him of the choices that were made on Bani's behalf and those that he made for himself. Of the hurt he caused and the heartache he carries. Of the mistakes he made and the lessons he learned."--Back cover.

"In a tiny Beirut apartment, sixty-three-year-old Raja and his mother live side by side. A beloved high school philosophy teacher and 'the neighborhood homosexual,' Raja relishes books, meditative walks, order, and solitude. Zalfa, his octogenarian mother, views her son's desire for privacy as a personal affront. She demands to know every detail of Raja's work life and love life, boundaries be damned. When Raja receives an invite to an all-expenses-paid writing residency in America, the timing couldn't be better. It arrives on the heels of a series of personal and national disasters that have left Raja longing for peace and quiet away from his mother and the heartache of Lebanon. But what at first seems a stroke of good fortune soon leads Raja to recount and relive the very disasters and past betrayals he wishes to forget." -- Publisher's description.

"Mina Simpson, a Lebanese doctor, arrives at the infamous Moria refugee camp on Lesbos, Greece, after being urgently summoned for help by her friend who runs an NGO there. Alienated from her family except for her beloved brother, Mina has avoided being so close to her homeland for decades. But with a week off work and apart from her wife of thirty years, Mina hopes to accomplish something meaningful, among the abundance of Western volunteers who pose for selfies with beached dinghies and the camp's children. Soon, a boat crosses bringing Sumaiya, a fiercely resolute Syrian matriarch with terminal liver cancer. Determined to protect her children and husband at all costs, Sumaiya refuses to alert her family to her diagnosis. Bonded together by Sumaiya's secret, a deep connection sparks between the two women, and as Mina prepares a course of treatment with the limited resources on hand, she confronts the circumstances of the migrants' displacement, as well as her own constraints in helping them. Not since the inimitable Aaliya of An Unnecessary Woman has Rabih Alameddine conjured such a winsome heroine to lead us to one of the most wrenching conflicts of our time. Cunningly weaving in stories of other refugees into Mina's singular own, The Wrong End of the Telescope is a bedazzling tapestry of both tragic and amusing portraits of indomitable spirits facing a humanitarian crisis"-- Provided by publisher.

"A woman sits in her apartment in an unnamed English city, absorbed in watching the dramas of her neighbors through their windows. Traumatized into muteness after a long, devastating trip from war-torn Syria to the UK, she believes that she wants to sink deeper into isolation, moving between memories of her absent boyfriend and family and her homeland, dreams, and reality. At the same time, she begins writing for a magazine under the pseudonym "the Voiceless," trying to explain the refugee experience without sensationalizing it-or revealing anything about herself. Gradually, as the boundaries of her world expand, she has to make a choice: Will she remain a voiceless observer, or become an active participant in her own life and in a community that, despite her best efforts, is quickly becoming her own?"-- Provided by publisher.

In the tradition of Palestinian women writers, Asmaa Alatawna has gifted us a novel that is both personal and political, that exposes both the occupation and the patriarchy. A Long Walk from Gaza is a coming-of-age story that follows its teenage protagonist through her battles with a strict and abusive father, the exhilaration of her first crush, confrontations with occupation soldiers, and the heartbreak of leaving her home Gaza for a new life in Europe. Beginning in Europe and working backward to her own birth and early childhood, Alatawna's creative narration mirrors the traumas of her life and her people. A Long Walk from Gaza not only exposes the harshness of both male authority and the stifling of the dreams of girls in parallel with the devastating conditions Palestinians endure under a brutal Israeli occupation, but also the challenges of fleeing these for a cold, alienating life in Europe. Alatawna lays these bare within a story that also showcases moments of humor, joy, and the human capacity to survive and thrive at all costs. She skillfully weaves together the challenges of growing up in occupied Palestine while exposing the many intersections of violence, patriarchy, and growing up in a society that offers girls little to no compassion. Her teenage protagonist's feminist point of view is fresh and honest, powerfully conveying the heartbreaking truths of her life. At heart, A Long Walk from Gaza is a tale of freedom. Each of the characters is psychically wounded by their circumstances and each resists in their own way. Gaza comes to life in Alatawna's novel, showing a rich and diverse society--its flaws along with its beauty, showing us worlds, which are being destroyed and some of which no longer exist today.

"From Man Booker International Prize-winning author of Celestial Bodies and Bitter Orange Tree, a new novel about two Omani women whose unbreakable connection is forged as nursing sisters -- a bond considered akin to that of a birth sibling. Raised as sisters, Ghazaala is devastated when her friend Asiya is forced to leave their small mountainside village following a tragic circumstance. It's a separation that haunts her into adulthood, and she never gives up on finding a love that might replace the bond they shared. Years later, Ghazaala's family moves to Muscat, where she falls in love with a professional violinist who lives in their building. She completely surrenders herself to his charm and, despite her parents' opposition, runs away from home to marry him. While balancing the duties of a new wife -- caring for her husband, their home, and, before long, their twin boys -- Ghazaala resumes her education and enrolls in university. Ghazaala's sharp wit catches the attention of another student, Harir, during their freshman year. In the pages of her diary, Harir recounts the story of her deepening, transformative friendship with Ghazaala over the course of ten years. The elusive, ghostly existence of Asiya exerts a force over both their lives, yet neither Ghazaala nor Harir is aware of the connection. From the brilliant mind of Jokha Alharthi comes a tale of childhood friendship, and how its significance -- and loss -- can be recalibrated at different stages of life." -- Provided by publisher.

A breathtaking novel of longing, uncertainty, and ultimately of hope, written by an International Prize for Arabic Fiction-winning author and an International Booker-prize winning translator Azzan is a beekeeper in a rural community in Oman. Devoted to tending his bees and searching for wild hives, he encounters Thamna, a lone shepherd woman, on a mountain slope and is captivated by her and her honey-colored eyes. Across the breathtaking vistas of Oman's remote mountains and plains, Azzan's troubled past and present unfold. A disappointment to his family, he turns to drink, and ultimately discovers the healing power of his beekeeping, before an accident in which he loses all. Zahran Alqasmi's masterful novel thrums forward with a subtle momentum. His lucid, poetic writing conveys a visceral sense of time and place, of the fragile ecologies inhabited by both bees and humans alike, in this intense and compelling novel of loss and hope.

"A rich family story, a personal look at the legacy of war in the Middle East, and an indelible rendering of how we hold on to the people and places we call home The Nasr family is spread across the globe--Beirut, Brooklyn, Austin, the California desert. A Syrian mother, a Lebanese father, and three American children: all have lived a life of migration. Still, they've always had their ancestral home in Beirut--a constant touchstone--and the complicated, messy family love that binds them. But following his father's recent death, Idris, the family's new patriarch, has decided to sell. The decision brings the family to Beirut, where everyone unites against Idris in a fight to save the house. They all have secrets--lost loves, bitter jealousies, abandoned passions, deep-set shame--that distance has helped smother. But in a city smoldering with the legacy of war, an ongoing flow of refugees, religious tension, and political protest, those secrets ignite, imperiling the fragile ties that hold this family together."--Publisher.

"1959, the West Bank, Palestine. Khaled's bossy, hot-tempered father insists that his son go to college in the States so he can learn to help him run his business. Khaled, Arabic for forever, is reluctant to leave his secret, hometown crush. But he's bullied into taking off for Ann Arbor. There he falls for a blue-collar American girl. One thing leads to another, including a daughter named Jamila, Arabic for beautiful. Family mayhem erupts on all sides. Fast forward to 1984. Jamila has come of age growing up in Ann Arbor during the turbulent sixties and seventies. There she falls for her brother's best friend, Ali, who she's known for years. But even though he's practically a member of the family, Ali is Black. Interracial marriages in the US are still few and far between. Mayhem breaks out again, tearing close ties apart. And so, what might Sitti, the grandmother conciliator, have to say?" -- Publisher's website.

"Set in Jaffa in 1947-51, this fable-like novel is a heartbreaking tale of young love during the beginning of the destruction of Palestine and displacement of its people. At times darkly humorous and ironic but also profoundly moving, this novel based on a true story follows the lives of a 15 year old engineer, Subhi, and the 13 year old girl, Shams, he hopes one day to marry. It brings Jaffa vividly to life as a beautiful city by the sea where Jews, Palestinians and Christians lived peacefully just before it was destroyed by the November 29, 1947 UN General Assembly Resolution 181 that would partition Palestine into two states and the end of the British Mandate on May 14, 1948. The first part of the story conveys the prosperous life of this cosmopolitan city on the Mediterranean--with its old cinemas, lively cafes and brothels, open air markets, a bustling port and orange groves on the hills behind--through the lives of the families of Subhi and Shams, but particularly through Subhi, a gifted engineer. As the novel evolves, the bombing and displacements of families begin, and we get a fascinating though dark close-up of how those who were left survived which we see more through Shams and her sisters. This novel is a cinematic, though devastating account of an important moment in history of the Middle East and portrait of city irrevocably changed"-- Provided by publisher.

"On a hot day in Bethlehem, a twelve-year-old Palestinian-American girl is yelled at by a group of men outside the Church of the Nativity. She has exposed her legs in a biblical city, an act they deem forbidden, and their judgement will echo on through her adolescence. When our narrator finally admits to her mother that she is queer, her mother's response only intensifies a sense of shame: 'You exist too much, ' she tells her daughter. Told in vignettes that flash between the U.S. and the Middle East--from New York to Jordan, Lebanon, and Palestine--Zaina Arafat's debut novel traces her protagonist's progress from blushing teen to sought-after DJ and aspiring writer"--Back cover.

"The intimate, sweeping tale of one man's restless search for home the world over, as the pendulum of fate swings between loss and life, grief and euphoria, regret and hope All his life, exile has been the shadow stitched to the sole of Sufien's shoe. Born in Palestine on the precipice of 1948's Nakba, Sufien is forced to leave the only home he's ever known, the one on the hill with a beautiful blue door. This is the precise moment when time stops making sense. He spends the rest of his life propelled forward, always on the way-although in search of what, he is never quite sure. In the dusty, oil-rich desert of Kuwait, he meets his first love and decides he must leave his family. In a small Italian university town, he spends his youth wrapped up in the sweet promise of the West and the forgetful assurance of wine. When life takes him to a gritty New York, he discovers his true vocation and falls for a Jewish woman born into a wholly different world. Finally, he finds himself recalled to the wild, vast open skies of the desert, in Arizona. Sufien's life spans friendships lost and maintained, a stint selling leathers at a tanner's stall, the ineffable company of cats, and the freedom of the open road, the glowing pride of fatherhood, Sufi myths, prophetic dreams, and visions of the afterlife-and always, always, no matter how far he chases joy, the sweet, treacherous song of a balcony urging him to fly, to fall, to fall. The lyrical pages of Paradiso 17 weave in and out of time and space, beginning at the end and ending at the beginning. They are haunting, haunted with grief, struck through, as Dante once wrote, with "the arrow that the bow of exile / shoots first," and yet they throb with light-not just the light that Sufien sees as he approaches his own end, but the brilliant light of a life lived. Like all of our dead, Sufien still tries to speak, the book begins. Listen, this is his story"-- Provided by publisher.

"From one of the foremost writers in the Arab world comes a new novel banned in his home country, Egypt--a devastating work of fiction about the Egyptian revolution, taking us inside the battle raging between those in power and those prepared to lay down their lives in the defense of freedom"-- Provided by publisher

Set in Sydney, Australia, Courting Samira is a charming and frothy romantic comedy about a twenty-seven-year-old Palestinian woman who finds herself in an unexpected love triangle-a sparkling ode to meddling best friends, traditional courtship, The Princess Bride, and, of course, the possibility of love.-- Amazon.com.

"From the author of the bestselling Clytemnestra comes another intoxicating excursion into ancient history, as Casati reimagines the rise to power of the Assyrian empire's only female ruler, Semiramis. When kings fall, queens rise. Nothing about Semiramis's upbringing could have foretold her legacy or the power she would come to wield. A female ruler, once an orphan raised on the outskirts of an empire -- certainly no one in Ancient Assyria would bend to her command willingly. Semiramis was a woman who knew if she wanted power, she would have to claim it. There are whispers of her fame in Mesopotamian myth-- Semiramis was a queen, an ambitious warrior, a commander whose reputation reaches the majestic proportions of Alexander the Great. Historical record, on the other hand, falls eerily quiet. In her second novel, Costanza Casati brilliantly weaves myth and ancient history together to give Semiramis a voice, charting her captivating ascent to a throne no one promised her. The world Casati expertly builds is rich with dazzling detail and will transport her readers to the heat of the Assyrian Empire and a world long gone"-- Provided by publisher.

"A heartbreaking tale of a family and an impossible love, torn apart by secrets and traditions in late-twentieth-century Cairo. In a tight-knit Levantine Christian family in 1960s Cairo, Tarek's entire life is written in advance. He'll be a doctor like his father, marry, and have children. Under the watchful eye of the family's strong women, he starts to do just that - until a patient's son, Ali, enters his life and turns it upside down. The two men's unsayable relationship sparks a series of events as dramatic as the Six-Day War and assassination of President Anwar Sadat playing out in the background. The turn of the millennium finds Tarek living as a doctor in Montreal. Someone is writing about him and to him, piecing together a past he wants only to forget. But who is the writer of this tale? And will Tarek figure it out in time? From Cairo's grand boulevards and hidden alleys to Montreal's grim winter, from the reign of Nasser to the early 2000s, What I Know About You tells the heartbreaking story of a family torn apart by an epic love. A bestseller in its original Quebec edition, and the recipient of several awards, including the Prix Femina, What I Know About You is poised to be an international sensation."-- Provided by publisher.

"The Cohen sisters are at a crossroads. Nina, the eldest, is disillusioned with the tight-knit community she and her sisters were raised in. Fortune, the middle sister, is the center of attention as her wedding approaches, bringing with it pressures and hopes for the future. Lucy, the youngest, is a senior at her yeshiva high school, and recently started sneaking around with a mysterious older bachelor. As Fortune gets closer and closer to standing below the chuppah, the three sisters find themselves in a tug of war between tradition and modernity, balancing what their community wants against what they want for themselves. Overshadowing all of this are Sally, their overprotective mother, and Sitto, their charismatic grandmother who fled Syria in 1992, both of whom are as concerned about what everyone is eating and how good the food tastes, as they are about marital bliss. Sisters of Fortune offers a unique perspective into what it's like to be a young woman coming of age in a cloistered, tightly bound community, while still asking universal questions: What do we dream for ourselves? What do we dream for our families? And, above all, what are we going to eat for dinner?"-- Provided by publisher.

"A fable, parable, and confession, the second novel from the acclaimed author of The Meursault Investigation pays homage to the essential need for fiction and to the insolent freedom afforded by an adopted language. Having lost his mother and been shunned by his father, Zabor grows up in the company of books, which afford him a new language. Ever since he can remember, he has been convinced that he has a gift: if he writes, he will stave off death; those captured in the sentences of his notebooks will live for longer. Like a kind of inverted Scheherazade saving his fellow men, he experiments night after night with the delirious power of the imagination. On this particular evening, all the progeny of his stepmother come knocking at the door: his father is going to die and perhaps only Zabor is capable of delaying the fateful moment. Sitting next to the father who has ostracized him, the son writes compulsively, retracing an existence characterized by strangeness, abandonment, and humiliation, but also by wondrous encounters with countless fictional worlds that he alone in the entire village has ever had access to"-- Provided by publisher.

"A new novel that gives voice to the diverse residents of a Palestinian American community in Baltimore--from young activists in conflict with their traditional parents to the poor who clean for the rich--shows lives which intersect across divides of class, generation and religion"-- Provided by publisher.

"More bodies have washed up on the shores of a small island. Another over-filled, ill-equipped, dilapidated ship has sunk under the weight of its too many passengers: Syrians, Ethiopians, Egyptians, Lebanese, Palestinians, all of them desperate to escape untenable lives in their homelands. And only one has made the passage: nine-year-old Amir, a Syrian boy who has the good fortune to fall into the hands not of the officials but of Vänna: a teenage girl, native to the island, who lives inside her own sense of homelessness in a place and among people she has come to disdain. And though she and the boy are complete strangers, though they don't speak a common language, she determines to do whatever it takes to save him. In alternating chapters, we learn the story of the boy's life and of how he came to be on the boat; and we follow the girl and boy as they make their way toward a vision of safety. But as the novel unfurls we begin to understand that this is not merely the story of two children finding their way through a hostile world, it is the story of our collective moment in this time: of empathy and indifference, of hope and despair--and of the way each of those things can blind us to reality, or guide us to a better one"-- Provided by publisher.

As a skilled kitchen witch, Dina Whitlock knows her way around a pastry recipe. In fact, she runs her very own London café, serving magic-infused treats to her loyal customers. She is not as much of an expert on romance, thanks to the hex hanging over her head. It's hard to fall in love when your partner is cursed with a string of bad luck. But who needs love when your best friend is getting married, right? Scott Mason has returned from global travels thrilled to embark on his new role as a curator at the British Museum. Having left London two years ago to recover from a devastating breakup, Scott has missed out on a lot. With his best friend's wedding approaching, and Scott as best man, this is his chance to make up for lost time. Little does he expect to be enchanted by the magical maid of honor. During a romantic weekend filled with a peculiar hedge maze, palm readings by candlelight, and a midnight Halloween ritual, there's no denying the chemistry between them. But the hex still holds, and Dina knows that Scott is in danger of more than just bad luck--because she's falling, hard. Will Dina be able to undo the hex before it's too late? -- Provided by publisher.

An uproarious debut novel about a young woman from the Canary Islands whose internship with a supermarket chain reveals the soul-crushing vagaries of modern life. Meryem is twenty-five years old, drinks too much coffee, goes on dates with terrifying men and never says what she really thinks. A Canarian from a Moroccan family, she's just started working as an intern at a mega-chain supermarket, where the only thing she and her boss have in common is their mutual hatred for each other. To pass the time, Meryem begins to write fan fiction starring her office mates. Surrounded by insecure and inept individuals, she reimagines her bland day job through fabricated office crushes and coworker drama. But to get through the daily grind, she's going to have to summon more than just her imagination. Bold, refreshing and darkly comedic, Supersaurio vividly portrays the everyday trials and tribulations of entering your twenties in a world that feels like everything's pitted against you.

"It's always been Malak, Kees, and Jenna against the world. Since childhood, under the watchful eyes of their parents, aunties and uncles, they've learned to live their own lives alongside the expectations of being good Muslim women...With growing older and the stakes of love and life growing higher, the delicate balancing act between rebellion and religion is becoming increasingly difficult to navigate. As their lives begin to take different paths, Malak, Kees, and Jenna--now on the precipice of true adulthood--must find a way back to each other as they reconcile faith, family, and tradition with their own needs and desires"-- Provided by publisher.

Tunisia, 1930s. Against the turbulent backdrop of a country in search of its identity, the destinies of two prominent families intertwine: the Ennaifer family, with its rigidly conservative and patriarchal mentality; and the Rassaas, open-minded and avowedly progressive. One terrible night in December 1935, the fortunes of both families are changed forever when Zbaida Ali Rassaa, the young wife of Mohsen Ennaifer, is accused of having a clandestine love affair with Tahar Haddad, an intellectual of humble origins known for his union activism and support for women's rights. The events of that fateful night are recounted by eleven different narrators, members of the two families, who recall them from different moments in time over a span of seventy years.-- Publisher description

"Who is Yahya Bas? Revolutionary poet, notorious jihadist, misbegotten son, self-styled idiot-boy. When the enigmatic Yahya finds himself languishing in a UK detention center after fleeing the conflict in Syria, he has many questions to face. What was he doing in the desert? Why did he betray his country? What led him to write the incendiary verses that launched him to international infamy? Mister, his interrogator, wants answers. So Yahya resolves to tell his own story, in his own words, and on his own terms. Following a child of the tumultuous 90s who becomes the unwitting voice of a generation, Mister, Mister is many stories at once: the invention of an identity, the quest for a long-lost father, and the discovery of another way to live in the shadow of war."-- Provided by publisher.

In the summer of 2014, three long estranged Iraqi-British sisters are pulled back into each other's orbit by the rediscovery of their late father's long-lost paintings. Beautiful, elusive Zainab; embittered, practical Mediha; and headstrong, queer Ishtar each lay claim to their father's legacy--an artistic and personal inheritance entwined with betrayal, exile, and a homeland they no longer recognize. As the sisters fight to preserve, erase, or repurpose the past, Zainab's estranged son Nizar, a war correspondent haunted by trauma and heartbreak, returns to the family fold. With the reemergence of buried memories comes a reckoning, and the family is forced to confront the personal and political betrayals that tore them apart. Spanning continents and decades--from 1950s Baghdad to contemporary London, from the Tigris River to Yemeni refugee camps--Floodlines is at once an intimate family drama and, in its scope, a modern epic. It is a rare novel that bridges the historic and the immediate and a heartfelt meditation on what it means to belong, to create, to endure.

"A debut novel that follows a young woman's career aspirations to become a stand-up comedian in New York City as she balances the traditions of her Palestinian upbringing with her need to live-and to love-on her own terms, particularly as she discovers her grandmother's journals that chronicle her complicated life in Palestine circa 1947"-- Provided by publisher.

"A bold, evocative new novel from the National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 and Betty Trask Award winner Isabella Hammad that follows actress Sonia as she returns to Palestine and takes a role in a West Bank production of Hamlet. After years away from her family's homeland, and healing from an affair with an established director, stage actress Sonia Nasir returns to Palestine to visit her older sister Haneen. Though the siblings grew up spending summers at their family home in Haifa, Sonia hasn't been since the second intifada and the deaths of her grandparents. While Haneen stayed and made a life commuting to Tel Aviv to teach at the university, Sonia remained in London to focus on her burgeoning acting career and now dissolute marriage. On her return, she finds her relationship to Palestine is fragile, both bone-deep and new. Once at Haneen's, Sonia meets the charismatic and candid Mariam, a local director, and finds herself roped into a production of Hamlet in the West Bank. Soon, Sonia is rehearsing Gertrude's lines in Classical Arabic and spending more time in Ramallah than in Haifa with a dedicated group of men from all over historic Palestine who, in spite of competing egos and priorities, each want to bring Shakespeare to that side of the wall. As opening night draws closer it becomes clear just how many invasive and violent obstacles stand before a troupe of Palestinian actors. Amidst it all, the life Sonia once knew starts to give way to the daunting, exhilarating possibility of finding a new self in her ancestral home. A stunning rendering of present-day Palestine, Enter Ghost is a story of diaspora, displacement, and the connection to be found in family and shared resistance. Timely, thoughtful, and passionate, Isabella Hammad's highly anticipated second novel is an exquisite feat, an unforgettable story of artistry under occupation"-- Provided by publisher.

"Held deep in a mountain refuge, Sylvia has been captured by the Urabi, who believe the Jasad Heir can return their homeland to its former power. But after years of denying her legacy and a forbidden alliance with Jasad's greatest enemy, Sylvia must win the Urabi's trust while struggling to hide the dangerous side effects her magic is having on her mind. In a rival kingdom, Arin must maneuver carefully between his father's desire to put down the brewing rebellion and the sacred edicts Arin is sworn to uphold. He is determined to find Sylvia before it's too late, but Arin's search unravels secrets that threaten the very core of his beliefs about his family and the destruction of Jasad. War is inevitable, but Sylvia cannot abandon her people again. The Urabi plan to raise the Jasadi fortress, and it will either kill Sylvia or destroy the humanity she's fought so hard to protect. For the first time in her life Sylvia doesn't just want to survive. She wants to win. The fugitive queen is ready to reign"-- Provided by publisher.

"At ten years old, the Heir of Jasad fled a massacre that takes her entire family. At fifteen, she buried her first body. At twenty, the clock is ticking on Sylvia's third attempt at home. Nizahl's armies have laid waste to Jasad and banned magic across the four remaining kingdoms. Fortunately, Sylvia's magic is as good at playing dead as she is. When the Nizahl Heir tracks a group of Jasadis to Sylvia's village, the quiet life she's crafted unravels. Calculating and cold, Arin's tactical brilliance is surpassed only by his hatred for magic. When a mistake exposes Sylvia's magic, Arin offers her an escape: compete as Nizahl's Champion in the Alcalah tournament and win immunity from persecution. To win the deadly Alcalah, Sylvia must work with Arin to free her trapped magic, all while staying a step ahead of his efforts to uncover her identity. But as the two grow closer, Sylvia realizes winning her freedom means destroying any chance of reuniting Jasad under her banner. The scorched kingdom is rising again, and Sylvia will have to choose between the life she's earned and the one she left behind"-- Provided by publisher.

"A collection of short stories that explores the everyday life of people in Egypt."-- Provided by publisher.

"From the internationally bestselling author of The Attack and The Swallows of Kabul, a gripping first-person narrative about one young man's involvement in France's worst terrorist attack. Khalil, a 23-year-old Belgian of Moroccan descent, plans to detonate a suicide vest in a crowd outside the Stade de France on November 13, 2015. Explosions are rocking Paris, at ́cafes and the Bataclan theater, and when other bombs drive the stadium crowd to flee in his direction, near the Metro, his time has come. He presses his button, and . . . nothing. Fearing he has failed his mission for Fraternel Solidarity, an ISIS affiliate, Khalil has little choice but to blend in with his would-be victims and run. Back in Belgium, he must lie low and avoid his militant brethren and the authorities. He relies on his family and friends for places to stay, but he must keep the truth about himself secret. All the while, he contemplates what he almost did, and what he will do next--particularly when it comes to light that his vest accidentally had been a harmless training unit all along, and FS has a new mission planned for him. In this daring, propulsive literary thriller, Yasmina Khadra takes readers to the margins of Europe's glittering capitals, through neighborhoods isolated by government neglect and popular apathy, if not outright racism. And he brings to life an unusual protagonist, a young man struggling with family, religion, and politics who makes fateful choices, and in doing so dramatizes powerful questions about society and human nature"-- Provided by publisher.

"I am Majid al-Hanafi of Najd, I was not an honorable man." So goes this epic tale, written in the vein of the great Arab explorers and travel writers. Scribe and bookseller Mazid al-Hanafi journeys from his remote village in the Arabian Desert dreaming of grand libraries. His passion for books draws him into a secret society of book smugglers and to the great cultural capitals of the period-Baghdad, Jerusalem, Cairo, Kairouan, Granada, and Cordoba. He enters a dangerous new world of ideas and experiences the cultural diversity of the Islamic Golden Age, its various sects, philosophical schools, wars, and ways of life. Omaima Al-Khamis's vivid descriptions of time and place trace a route through ancient cities and cultures and immerse us in a distant era, one brought to life by her magical storytelling and one in which the intellectual debates and struggles that characterized the time continue to rage today"-- Provided by publisher.

After seven years in prison, Warif is released to a changed Cairo. Freedom so far has been endless, inscrutable meetings with official-looking strangers, trying to get his job as a translator back. This new Cairo, busy with expats and bureaucrats, is proving disorienting: What is he supposed to make of these self-assured newcomers who are so certain of his obsolescence, his subjugation, his solitude? They seem happy to provide him with a salary, if he's willing to give up the work that gave his life meaning. As his encounters more-and-more resemble interrogations and the futility of trying to escape the system set against him threatens to suffocate him, Warif escapes into the vivid colors of the city, looking deeper and deeper into the food, the people, the buildings, and the flowers, until what's real blurs into fantasy.

"A family saga about the lives of three sisters and a narrator named Jonas, spanning three decades and three continents"-- Provided by publisher.

Adam Dannoun's story is one of beginnings. Born in a war-torn Israel, Adam dreams of becoming a writer. He is just an infant when Jewish forces uproot and massacre thousands of Palestinians in the 1948 Nakba, including his own father. Adam's mother, crumbling with loss, takes her son to Haifa and remarries. Soon she feels stifled by her new husband. Adam flees this lifeless home and writes himself a second beginning. With nothing but his father's will and the image of his mother at the doorway, Adam is born again into the streets of Haifa.

"Sara has just landed at LAX, returning home from a conference abroad, when agents from the Risk Assessment Administration pull her aside and inform her that she will soon commit a crime. Using data from her dreams, the RAA's algorithm has determined that she is at imminent risk of harming the person she loves most: her husband. For his safety, she must be kept under observation for twenty-one days. The agents transfer Sara to a retention center, where she is held with other dreamers, all of them women trying to prove their innocence from different crimes. With every deviation from the strict and ever-shifting rules of the facility, their stay is extended. Months pass and Sara seems no closer to release. Then one day, a new resident arrives, disrupting the order of the facility and leading Sara on a collision course with the very companies that have deprived her of her freedom."-- Provided by publisher.

"In Tunisia at the turn of the 80s and 90s, an era of great tensions and political and social changes, the story of a revolutionary love and dream destined to succumb in the clash with the harsh reality of a country in which repression, malpractice and general degradation crush the ambitions and dreams of the individual. At his father's funeral, to the great consternation of all present, Abdel Nasser beats the imam who is celebrating the funeral rite. The narrator, a childhood friend of the protagonist, retraces the story of Abdel Nasser from his days as a free and rebellious adolescent spirit to the leader of a student movement and then affirmed journalist. Those were crucial years in Tunisia, with great tensions and changes coming up: the growth of Islamism fighting against the strong repression by the government. Against this background full of revolutionary ferments, struggles against Islamists and demonstrations against state power stands the tormented love story between Abdel Nasser and Zeina, a brilliant and beautiful philosophy student who dreams of a career in academia. The dreams of Zeina and Abdel Nasser will unfortunately end up being wrecked under the ruthless gears of a corrupt and male chauvinist society, in which values are only a facade, ending up crushing the individuality, hopes, and aspirations of individuals. Abdel Nasser's transformation from a young idealist with high hopes to a successful, but disillusioned and tired journalist is masterfully narrated in a stream of stories, digressions and flashbacks in which the narrative tension is always high."--Amazon.com.

"In his final years, the Egyptian master storyteller and Nobel Laureate Naguib Mahfouz drew on his dreams, combining the mystery of what we experience in the night with the deep wells of his narrative art. These last dreams, stunning poetic vignettes--now brought beautifully into English for the first time by the acclaimed novelist Hisham Matar--appear here with dreamlike photographs by the famous American photographer Diana Matar, which both mysteriously rhyme with Mahfouz's nocturnal reveries and, allowing the reader a chance to dream in turn, open up the texts. These sketches and stories are terselyhaunting miniatures. Recurring female characters may be figures of Cairo herself, especially one much-missed lover from Mahfouz's youth. Friends, family, rulers of Egypt, and many beautiful women all float through these affecting brief tales dreamed by a mind too fertileever to rest, even in slumber. A tender and personal introduction by Hisham Matar, recollecting how he and his wife met Mahfouz in Cairo not long after the assassination attempt on the author, is moving and likewise indelible."-- Provided by publisher.

"One evening, as a young boy growing up in Benghazi, Khaled hears a bizarre short story read aloud on the radio, about a man being eaten alive by a cat. Obsessed by the power of those words--and by their enigmatic author, Hosam Zawa--Khaled eventually embarks on a journey that will take him far from home, to pursue a life of the mind at the University of Edinburgh. There, thrust into an open society that is light years away from the world he knew in Libya, Khaled begins to change. He attends a protest against the Qaddafi regime in London, only to watch it explode in tragedy. In a flash, Khaled finds himself injured, clinging to life, an exile, unable to leave England, much less return to the country of his birth. To even tell his mother and father back home what he has done, on tapped phone lines, would jeopardize their safety. When a chance encounter in a hotel brings Khaled face to face with Hosam Zawa, the author of the fateful short story, he is subsumed into the deepest friendship of his life. It is a friendship that not only sustains him, but eventually forces him, as the Arab Spring erupts, to confront agonizing tensions between revolution and safety, family and exile, and how to define his own sense of self against those closest to him"-- Provided by publisher.

Helen is a young Yazidi woman, living with her family in a mountain village in Sinjar, northern Iraq. One day she finds a local bird caught in a trap, and frees it, just as the trapper, Elias, returns. At first angry, he soon sees the error of his ways and vows never to keep a bird captive again. Helen and Elias fall deeply in love, marry and start a family in Sinjar. The village has seemed to stand apart from time, protected by the mountains and too small to attract much political notice. But their happy existence is suddenly shattered when Elias, a journalist, goes missing. A brutal organization is sweeping over the land, infiltrating even the remotest corners, its members cloaking their violence in religious devotion. Helen's search for her husband results in her own captivity and enslavement. She eventually escapes her captors and is reunited with some of her family. But her life is forever changed. Elias remains missing and her sons, now young recruits to the organization, are like strangers. Will she find harmony and happiness again?

"Based on a true event, The Fortune Men tells the intimate, harrowing story of the last man in Britain to be sentenced to death. In Cardiff, Wales in 1952, Mahmood Mattan, a young Somali sailor, is accused of a crime he did not commit: the brutal killing of Violet Volacki, a shopkeeper from Tiger Bay. At first, Mahmood believes he can ignore the fingers pointing his way; he may be a gambler and a petty thief, but he is no murderer. He is a father of three, secure in his innocence and his belief in British justice. But as the trial draws closer, his prospect for freedom dwindles. Now, Mahmood must stage a terrifying fight for his life, with all the chips stacked against him: a shoddy investigation, an inhumane legal system, and, most evidently, pervasive and deep-rooted racism at every step. Under the shadow of the hangman's noose, Mahmood begins to realize that even the truth may not be enough to save him. A haunting tale of miscarried justice, this book offers a chilling look at the dark corners of our humanity."-- Provided by publisher

"A brilliantly original debut graphic novel that imagines a fantastical Cairo where wishes really do come true. Deena Mohamed brings to life a cast of characters whose struggles and triumphs are heartbreaking, inspiring, and deeply resonant. Shubeik Lubeik -- a fairy-tale rhyme that means "your wish is my command" in Arabic -- is the story of three people who are navigating a world where wishes are literally for sale. Mired as they are in bureaucracy and the familiar prejudices of our world, the wishes that are more expensive are more likely to work as intended. Three wishes sold at an unassuming kiosk in Cairo link Aziza, Nour, and Shokry, changing their perspectives as well as their lives. Aziza learned early that life can be hard, but when she loses her husband and manages to procure a wish, she finds herself fighting unreasonable regulations and inequality for the right to have -- and make -- that wish. Nour is a privileged college student who secretly struggles with depression and must decide whether to use their wish to try to "fix" this depression. And, finally, Shokry must grapple with his religious convictions as he decides how to help a friend who doesn't want to use her wish. Although their stories are fantastical, each of these people wrestles with the very real challenge of trying to make their most deeply held desires come true." -- Back cover.

"A Palestinian American woman wrestles with faith, loss, and identity before coming face-to-face with a school shooter in this searing debut. A uniquely American story told in powerful, evocative prose, The Beauty of Your Face navigates a country growing ever more divided. Afaf Rahman, the daughter of Palestinian immigrants, is the principal of Nurrideen School for Girls, a Muslim school in the Chicago suburbs. One morning, a shooter -- radicalized by the online alt-right -- attacks the school. As Afaf listens to his terrifying progress, we are swept back through her memories: the bigotry she faced as a child, her mother's dreams of returning to Palestine, and the devastating disappearance of her older sister that tore her family apart. Still, there is the sweetness of the music from her father's oud, and the hope and community Afaf finally finds in Islam. The Beauty of Your Face is a profound and poignant exploration of one woman's life in a nation at odds with its ideals." -- Provided by publisher.

"A moving multigenerational novel by the celebrated Palestinian American author of The Beauty of Your Face. In the middle of dinner one evening, Intisar Jaber receives a phone call that will upend her quiet life in Chicago: her father is dying and she must go to Palestine to pay her final respects. But Intisar hasn't seen or heard from Hafez for nearly two decades, ever since he abandoned her and her mother to join the resistance. After a fateful mission, Hafez was thrown into the notorious Gahana Prison to serve a life sentence--permanently removed from her life. As soon as Intisar arrives in his village of Bayt al-Hawa, she discovers what it means to be a stranger in her ancestral land, the inheritance of loss, and the high price of freedom. Meanwhile, Hafez's mother Sundus battles to save the home that she built with her husband from thieving hands. Will Intisar, her estranged granddaughter, help Sundus fight to reclaim it? Can they close the gaping distance between them before it's too late? Powerfully etched in Sahar Mustafah's honest and lyrical prose, The Slightest Green explores the place--and people--we call home and how far we will go to reach them"--Amazon website.

In the aftermath of the Arab Spring, an Egyptian American woman and a man from the village of Shobrakheit meet at a café in Cairo. He was a photographer of the revolution, but now finds himself unemployed and addicted to cocaine, living in a rooftop shack. She is a nostalgic daughter of immigrants "returning" to a country she's never been to before, teaching English and living in a light-filled flat with balconies on all sides. They fall in love and he moves in. But soon their desire--for one another, for the selves they want to become through the other--takes a violent turn that neither of them expected.

"A man's body is found viciously murdered behind a neighborhood corner store, sending shockwaves through the tight-knit community. All the victim's family and bystanders want is to make sense of this brutal crime and move on with their lives. All seven-year-old Layla wants is a pet donkey. To her, a donkey is the epitome of freedom--the ability to think for herself, go anywhere by herself, and live an independent life. The killings continue, and rumors fly of supposedhoofprints and a woman with hair like black silk. The ambiguous messages in lipstick and sweet smell of perfume at the crime scenes causes the men to suspect the women around them. As Layla's world unravels, she realizes she must grow into the type of woman she's always dreamed of becoming. A woman with sharp instincts. A woman who cannot be tamed"-- Provided by publisher.

Raised in a conservative and emotionally volatile Palestinian family in Brooklyn, Yara thought she would finally feel free when she married a charming entrepreneur who took her to the suburbs. She's gotten to follow her dreams, completing an undergraduate degree in Art and landing a good job at the local college. As a traditional wife, she also raises their two school-aged daughters, takes care of the house, and has dinner ready when her husband gets home. With her family balanced with her professional ambitions, Yara knows that her life is infinitely more rewarding than her own mother's. So why doesn't it feel like enough? After her dream of chaperoning a student trip to Europe evaporates and she responds to a colleague's racist provocation, Yara is put on probation at work and must attend mandatory counseling to keep her position. Her mother blames a family curse for the trouble she's facing, and while Yara doesn't really believe in old superstitions, she still finds herself growing increasingly uneasy with her mother's warning and the possibility of falling victim to the same mistakes. Shaken to the core by these indictments of her life, Yara finds her carefully constructed world beginning to implode. To save herself, Yara must reckon with the reality that the difficulties of the childhood she thought she left behind have very real, and damaging, implications not just on her own future but that of her daughters.

"Anna and Constant Guillot live with their two daughters in the peaceful, remote mountain village of Carmac, largely deaf to the upheavals of the outside world. Everyone in Carmac knows each other, and most of its residents look alike--until Bakary and Sylvia Langlois arrive with their three children. Wealthy and flashy, the family of five are outsiders in the small town, their impressive chalet and three expensive cars a stark contrast with the modesty of those of their neighbors. Despite their differences, the Langlois and the Guillots form an uneasy, ambiguous friendship. But when both families begin experiencing financial troubles, the underlying class and racial tensions of their relationship come to a breaking point, and the unthinkable happens. With piercing psychological insight and gripping storytelling, People Like Them asks: How could a seemingly "normal" person commit an atrocious crime? How could that person's loved ones ever come to terms with it afterward? And how well can you really know your own spouse?"-- Provided by publisher.

"A funny, sexy, and heart-wrenching literary debut that explores exile, ambition, and hope across three generations of Palestinian American women"-- Provided by publisher.

"Minor Detail begins during the summer of 1949, one year after the war that the Palestinians mourn as the Nakba-the catastrophe that led to the displacement and exile of some 700,000 people-and the Israelis celebrate as the War of Independence. Israeli soldiers murder an encampment of Bedouin in the Negev desert, and among their victims they capture a Palestinian teenager and they rape her, kill her, and bury her in the sand. Many years later, in the near-present day, a young woman in Ramallah tries to uncover some of the details surrounding this particular rape and murder, and becomes fascinated to the point of obsession, not only because of the nature of the crime, but because it was committed exactly twenty-five years to the day before she was born. Adania Shibli masterfully overlays these two translucent narratives of exactly the same length to evoke a present forever haunted by the past"-- Provided by publisher.

"In her first new novel since The Perfect Nanny launched her onto the world stage and won her acclaim for her "devastatingly perceptive character studies" (The New York Times Book Review), Leila Slimani draws on her own family's inspiring story for the first volume in a planned trilogy about race, resilience, and women's empowerment. Mathilde, a spirited young Frenchwoman, falls in love with Amine, a handsome Moroccan soldier in the French army during World War II. After the war, the couple settles in Morocco. While Amine tries to cultivate his family farm's rocky terrain, Mathilde feels her vitality sapped by the isolation, the harsh climate, the lack of money, and the mistrust she inspires as a foreigner. Left increasingly alone to raise her two children in a world whose rules she does not understand, and with her daughter taunted at school by rich French girls for her secondhand clothes and unruly hair, Mathilde goes from being reduced to a farmer's wife to defying the country's chauvinism and repressive social codes by offering medical services to the rural population. As tensions mount between the Moroccans and the French colonists, Amine finds himself caught in the crossfire: in solidarity with his Moroccan workers yet also a landowner, despised by the French yet married to a Frenchwoman, and proud of his wife's resolve but ashamed by her refusal to be subjugated. All of them live in the country of others--especially the women, forced to live in the land of men--and with this novel, Leila Slimani issues the first salvo in their emancipation"-- Provided by publisher.

"The rebellions within an interracial family play out against the countercultural rebellions of the 1960s in this sexy, stylish, sophisticated new novel by the award-winning, internationally bestselling author of The Perfect Nanny and In the Country of Others"-- Provided by publisher.

An exquisite novel of North Africans in Paris by "one of the most original and necessary voices in world literature" Paris, Summer 2010. Zahira is 40 years old, Moroccan, a prostitute, traumatized by her father's suicide decades prior, and in love with a man who no longer loves her. Zannouba, Zahira's friend and protege, formerly known as Aziz, prepares for gender confirmation surgery and reflects on the reoccuring trauma of loss, including the loss of her pre-transition male persona. Mojtaba is a gay Iranian revolutionary who, having fled to Paris, seeks refuge with Zahira for the month of Ramadan. Meanwhile, Allal, Zahira's first love back in Morocco, travels to Paris to find Zahira. Through swirling, perpendicular narratives, A Country for Dying follows the inner lives of emigrants as they contend with the space between their dreams and their realities, a schism of a postcolonial world where, as Ta?a writes, "So many people find themselves in the same situation. It is our destiny: To pay with our bodies for other people's future."

"Three moments in the life of Malika, a Moroccan countrywoman. From 1954 to 1999. From French colonization to the death of King Hassan II. It is her voice we hear in Abdellah Taïa's stunning new novel, translated by Emma Ramadan, who won the PEN Translation Prize for her translation of Taia's last novel, A Country for Dying. Malika's first husband was sent by the French to fight in Indochina. In the 1960s, in Rabat, she does everything possible to prevent her daughter Khadija from becoming a maid in a rich French woman's villa. The day before the death of Hassan II, a young homosexual thief, Jaâfar, enters her home and wants to kill her. Malika recounts with rage her strategies to escape the injustices of History. To survive. To have a little space of her own. Malika is Taïa's mother: M'Barka Allali Taïa (1930-2010). This book is dedicated to her"-- Provided by publisher.

"In her therapist's waiting room in Damascus, Suleima meets the strange and reticent Nassim and soon the two begin a strained relationship. But when Nassim, a writer, flees Syria for Germany, he gives Suleima the manuscript for his most recent novel, whose protagonist's life bears discomforting similarities to her own. Whose story is it? What is fact and what is fiction? Narrated in alternating chapters by Suleima and the mysterious woman in Nassim's novel, The Frightened Ones is a probing examination of life in Assad's Syria and the devastating effects of oppression on one's sense of identity"-- Provided by publisher.

"An ode to fantasy and beauty in the midst of war-torn Damascus. Rima, a young girl from Damascus, longs to walk, to be free to follow the will of her feet, but instead is perpetually constrained. She finds refuge in a fantasy world full of colored crayons, secret planets, and The Little Prince, reciting passages of the Qur'an like a mantra as everything and everyone around her is blown to bits. Since Rima hardly ever speaks, people think she's crazy, but she is no fool--the madness is in the battered city around her. One day while taking a bus through Damascus, a soldier opens fire and her mother is killed. Rima, wounded, is taken to a military hospital before her brother leads her to the besieged area of Ghouta--where, between bombings, she writes her story. In Planet of Clay, Samar Yazbek offers a surreal depiction of the horrors taking place Syria, in vivid and poetic language and with a sharp eye for detail and beauty."-- Provided by publisher

"Ali, a nineteen-year-old soldier in the Syrian army, lies on the ground beneath a tree. He sees a body being lowered into a hole--is this his funeral? There was that sudden explosion, wasn't there... While trying to understand the extent of the damage, Ali works his way closer to the tree. His ultimate desire is to fly up to one of its branches, to safety. Through rich vignettes of Ali's memories, we uncover the hardships of his traditional Syrian Alawite village, but also the richness and beauty of its cultural and religious heritage. Yazbek here explores the secrets of the Alawite faith and its relationship to nature and the elements in a tight poetic novel dense with life and hope and love."--Back cover.

"Hadi and Sama are a young Syrian couple in the throes of new love, building a life in the country that brought them together. They'd met in Cambridge, Massachusetts: he, a shell-shocked refugee of a bloody civil war; she, a passionate dreamer who'd come to America years earlier in search of new horizons. Now, they giddily await the birth of their son, a boy whose native language would be freedom and belonging. When Sama is five months pregnant, Hadi's father dies, in Amman, the night before the embassy interview that would finally reunite Hadi with his parents and deliver them from a country in crisis. Hadi flies back to the Middle East for the funeral, promising he'll be gone only a few days. On the day his flight is due to arrive in Boston, Sama decides to surprise him at the airport, eager to scoop him up and bring him back home. She waits, and waits. There are protests at Logan airport, and Hadi never shows up. What Sama doesn't yet know is that Hadi has been stopped at the border. That he's been taken away for questioning, detained in a windowless, timeless, nightmarish limbo. She does not know about the travel ban, that his legal status in the U.S., which yesterday seemed rock solid, is now in jeopardy - and with it, the chance that he'll ever step foot on U.S. soil again. Amid the protests, Sama goes into premature labor; their son, Naseem, is born, too soon, his father nowhere to be found, the future they could almost taste wrenched from their grasp in a matter of hours. Worlds apart, suspended between hope and disillusion as hours become days become weeks, Sama and Hadi yearn for a way back to each other, and to the life they'd dreamed up together. But does that life exist anymore? Was it only ever an illusion? Achingly intimate yet poignantly universal, No Land to Light On is the story of a family caught on either side of a border, fighting for freedom and home, finding both in each other, and in the tenacious faith of creatures who take flight"-- Provided by publisher.