Download or read book New Voices of Arabia written by Anthony Calderbank and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The formation of Saudi Arabia in 1932, with the unification of the two Kingdoms of the Hejaz and Nejd, not only unified parts of the Arabian peninsula which had until then remained disparate, loosely related ethnic and tribal groupings, but also led to the development of a distinct Saudi Arabian literature. In an era when Arab culture was challenging the traditional literary norms in which, for centuries, poetry had been dominant, the new Arab cultural space permitted aspirational writers in the new Saudi country to experiment and develop their skills with prose. The result was a flowering of.
Download or read book New Voices of Arabia The Short Stories written by Abdulaziz Al-Sebail and published by I.B. Tauris. This book was released on 2012-03-15 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The formation of Saudi Arabia in 1932, with the unification of the two Kingdoms of the Hejaz and Nejd, not only unified parts of the Arabian peninsula which had until then remained disparate, loosely related ethnic and tribal groupings, but also led to the development of a distinct Saudi Arabian literature. In an era when Arab culture was challenging the traditional literary norms in which, for centuries, poetry had been dominant, the new Arab cultural space permitted aspirational writers in the new Saudi country to experiment and develop their skills with prose. The result was a flowering of short-story writing through the twentieth century. Ranging from the classical to the modern and highly experimental, this anthology brings together 40 short story writers representing different traditions and sensibilities. Whether exploring social reform or describing the alienation of the individual in a rapidly changing environment, replete with constraints and contradictions, the clash of traditions and modernity remains a constant theme recurring in most stories. This highly unusual book thus presents a remarkably illuminating insight into the complex and enigmatic setting which is Saudi Arabia today.
Download or read book Voices of Change written by Abū Bakr Aḥmad Bāqādir and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Twenty-six stories from a spectrum of Saudi women, selected on the basis of the fulfillment of at least one of three criteria: good story telling, making a social point, or being a well-known work by a significant author. Issues touched on in the stories include tribalism, adultery, polygyny, male dominance, professional women, communication and honesty in marriage, and the Arabic story telling tradition of which Shahrazad and her Arabian nights are probably the most familiar example. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Download or read book Voices of Change written by Abū Bakr Aḥmad Bāqādir and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Twenty-six stories from a spectrum of Saudi women, selected on the basis of the fulfillment of at least one of three criteria: good story telling, making a social point, or being a well-known work by a significant author. Issues touched on in the stories include tribalism, adultery, polygyny, male dominance, professional women, communication and honesty in marriage, and the Arabic story telling tradition of which Shahrazad and her Arabian nights are probably the most familiar example. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Download or read book New Voices of Arabia The Poetry written by Saad Al-Bazei and published by I.B. Tauris. This book was released on 2012-03-15 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Annotation. Bringing together three generations of poets, this anthology reflects the broad spectrum of Saudi poetry over the last half century or more.
Download or read book Modern Arabic Fiction written by Salma Khadra Jayyusi and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 1096 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beginning with the late-nineteenth-century cultural resurgence and continuing through the present day, short stories and novels have given voice to the personal and historical experiences of modern Arabs. This anthology offers a rich and diverse selection of works from more than one hundred and forty prominent Arab writers of fiction. The collection reflects Arab writers' formal inventiveness as well as their intense exploration of various dimensions of modern Arab life, including the impact of modernity, the rise of the oil economy, political authoritarianism, corruption, religion, poverty, and the Palestinian experience in modern times. Salma Khadra Jayyusi, a renowned scholar of Arabic literature, has included short stories and excerpts from novels from authors in every Arab country. Modern Arabic Fiction contains writings stretching from the pioneering work of late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century authors to the novels of Naguib Mahfouz and the stories of contemporary Arab writers. In addition to familiar names such as Mahfouz, the anthology presents excerpts from writers well known in the Arab world but just beginning to find an audience in the West, including early twentieth century Christian Lebanese writer Jurji Zaydan, whose historical epics were eye-openers for generations of Arab readers to the achievements of medieval Islamic civilization; Yusuf Idris's complex and brilliant portrait of Egypt's poor; 'Abd al-Rahman Muneef's searing exploration of the ecological and social impact of oil production; Palestinian writer Jabra Ibrahim Jabra's sophisticated description of the dilemma's of modern Arab intellectuals; and Jamal al-Ghitani's impressive employment of mythical time and the continuity of the past in the present. Jayyusi provides biographical information on the writers as well as a substantial and illuminating introduction to the development of modern Arabic fictional genres that considers the central thematic and aesthetic concerns of Arab short story writers and novelists.
Download or read book Animals in Our Days written by Mohamed Makhzangi and published by Syracuse University Press. This book was released on 2022-06-17 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Each story in Mohamed Makhzangi’s unique collection Animals in Our Days features a different animal species and its fraught relationship with humans—water buffalo in a rural village gone mad from electric lights, brass grasshoppers purchased in a crowded Bangkok market, or ghostly rabbits that haunt the site of a long-ago brutal military crackdown. Other stories tell of bear-trainers in India and of the American invasion of Iraq as experienced by a foal, deer, and puppies. Originally published in 2006, Makhzangi’s stories are part of a long tradition of writings on animals in Arabic literature. In this collection, animals offer a mute testament to the brutality and callousness of humanity, particularly when modernity sunders humans from the natural environment. Makhzangi is one of Egypt’s most perceptive and nuanced authors, merging a writer’s empathy with a scientist’s curiosity about the world. Like Barbara Kingsolver’s Flight Behavior, Haruki Murakami’s The Elephant Vanishes, or J. M. Coetzee’s Lives of Animals, Makhzangi’s stories trace the numinous, almost supernatural, connections between our species and others. In these resonant, haunting tales, Animals in Our Days foregrounds our urgent need to reacquire the sense of awe, humility, and respect that once characterized our relationship with animals.
Download or read book Temporary People written by Deepak Unnikrishnan and published by Restless Books. This book was released on 2017-03-14 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing "Guest workers of the United Arab Emirates embody multiple worlds and identities and long for home in a fantastical debut work of fiction, winner of the inaugural Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing.… The author's crisp, imaginative prose packs a punch, and his whimsical depiction of characters who oscillate between two lands on either side of the Arabian Sea unspools the kind of immigrant narratives that are rarely told. An enchanting, unparalleled anthem of displacement and repatriation." —Kirkus Reviews, starred review In the United Arab Emirates, foreign nationals constitute over 80 percent of the population. Brought in to construct and serve the towering monuments to wealth that punctuate the skylines of Abu Dhabi and Dubai, this labor force is not given the option of citizenship. Some ride their luck to good fortune. Others suffer different fates. Until now, the humanitarian crisis of the so-called “guest workers” of the Gulf has barely been addressed in fiction. With his stunning, mind-altering debut novel Temporary People, Deepak Unnikrishnan delves into their histories, myths, struggles, and triumphs. Combining the linguistic invention of Salman Rushdie and the satirical vision of George Saunders, Unnikrishnan presents twenty-eight linked stories that careen from construction workers who shapeshift into luggage and escape a labor camp, to a woman who stitches back together the bodies of those who’ve fallen from buildings in progress, to a man who grows ideal workers designed to live twelve years and then perish—until they don’t, and found a rebel community in the desert. With this polyphony of voices, Unnikrishnan maps a new, unruly global English and gives personhood back to the anonymous workers of the Gulf. "Guest workers of the United Arab Emirates embody multiple worlds and identities and long for home in a fantastical debut work of fiction, winner of the inaugural Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing.… The author's crisp, imaginative prose packs a punch, and his whimsical depiction of characters who oscillate between two lands on either side of the Arabian Sea unspools the kind of immigrant narratives that are rarely told. An enchanting, unparalleled anthem of displacement and repatriation." —Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review "Inventive, vigorously empathetic, and brimming with a sparkling, mordant humor, Deepak Unnikrishnan has written a book of Ovidian metamorphoses for our precarious time. These absurdist fables, fluent in the language of exile, immigration, and bureaucracy, will remind you of the raw pleasure of storytelling and the unsettling nearness of the future." —Alexandra Kleeman, author of You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine “Inaugural winner of the Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing, this debut novel employs its own brand of magical realism to propel readers into an understanding and appreciation of the experience of foreign workers in the Arab Gulf States (and beyond). Through a series of almost 30 loosely linked sections, grouped into three parts, we are thrust into a narrative alternating between visceral realism and fantastic satire.... The alternation between satirical fantasy, depicting such things as intelligent cockroaches and evil elevators, and poignant realism, with regards to necessarily illicit sexuality, forms a contrast that gives rise to a broad critique of the plight of those known euphemistically as ‘guest workers.’ VERDICT: This first novel challenges readers with a singular inventiveness expressed through a lyrical use of language and a laserlike focus that is at once charming and terrifying. Highly recommended.” —Henry Bankhead, Library Journal, Starred Review “Unnikrishnan’s debut novel shines a light on a little known world with compassion and keen insight. The Temporary People are invisible people—but Unnikrishnan brings them to us with compassion, intelligence, and heart. This is why novels matter.” —Susan Hans O’Connor, Penguin Bookshop (Sewickley, PA) “Deepak Unnikrishnan uses linguistic pyrotechnics to tell the story of forced transience in the Arabian Peninsula, where citizenship can never be earned no matter the commitment of blood, sweat, years of life, or brains. The accoutrements of migration—languages, body parts, passports, losses, wounds, communities of strangers—are packed and carried along with ordinary luggage, blurring the real and the unreal with exquisite skill. Unnikrishnan sets before us a feast of absurdity that captures the cruel realities around the borders we cross either by choice or by force. In doing so he has found what most writers miss: the sweet spot between simmering rage at a set of circumstances, and the circumstances themselves.” —Ru Freeman, author of On Sal Mal Lane “Deepak writes brilliant stories with a fresh, passionate energy. Every page feels as if it must have been written, as if the author had no choice. He writes about exile, immigration, deportation, security checks, rage, patience, about the homelessness of living in a foreign land, about historical events so strange that, under his hand, the events become tales, and he writes tales so precisely that they read like history. Important work. Work of the future. This man will not be stopped.” —Deb Olin Unferth, author of Revolution “From the strange Kafka-esque scenarios to the wholly original language, this book is amazing on so many different levels. Unlike anything I've ever read, Temporary People is a powerful work of short stories about foreign nationals who populate the new economy in the United Arab Emirates. With inventive language and darkly satirical plot lines, Unnikrishnan provides an important view of relentless nature of a global economy and its brutal consequences for human lives. Prepare to be wowed by the immensely talented new voice.” —Hilary Gustafson, Literati Bookstore (Ann Arbor, MI) “Absolutely preposterous! As a debut, author Unnikrishnan shares stories of laborers, brought to the United Arab Emirates to do menial and everyday jobs. These people have no rights, no fallback if they have problems or health issues in that land. The laborers in Temporary People are sewn back together when they fall, are abandoned in the desert if they become inconvenient, and are even grown from seeds. As a collection of short stories, this is fantastical, imaginative, funny, and even more so, scary, powerful, and ferocious.” —Becky Milner, Vintage Books (Vancouver WA)
Download or read book Silence Is My Mother Tongue written by Sulaiman Addonia and published by Graywolf Press. This book was released on 2020-09-08 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A sensuous, textured novel of life in a refugee camp, long-listed for the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction On a hill overlooking a refugee camp in Sudan, a young man strings up bedsheets that, in an act of imaginative resilience, will serve as a screen in his silent cinema. From the cinema he can see all the comings and goings in the camp, especially those of two new arrivals: a girl named Saba, and her mute brother, Hagos. For these siblings, adapting to life in the camp is not easy. Saba mourns the future she lost when she was forced to abandon school, while Hagos, scorned for his inability to speak, must live vicariously through his sister. Both resist societal expectations by seeking to redefine love, sex, and gender roles in their lives, and when a businessman opens a shop and befriends Hagos, they cast off those pressures and make an unconventional choice. With this cast of complex, beautifully drawn characters, Sulaiman Addonia details the textures and rhythms of everyday life in a refugee camp, and questions what it means to be an individual when one has lost all that makes a home or a future. Intimate and subversive, Silence Is My Mother Tongue dissects the ways society wages war on women and explores the stories we must tell to survive in a broken, inhospitable environment.
Download or read book The Secret of Evil written by Roberto Bolaño and published by New Directions Publishing. This book was released on 2012-04-30 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection that gathers everything Bolano was working on before his untimely death. A North American journalist in Paris is woken at 4 a.m. by a mysterious caller with urgent information. For V. S. Naipaul the prevalence of sodomy in Argentina is a symptom of the nation’s political ills. Daniela de Montecristo (familiar to readers of Nazi Literature in the Americas and 2666) recounts the loss of her virginity. Arturo Belano returns to Mexico City and meets the last disciples of Ulises Lima, who play in a band called The Asshole of Morelos. Belano’s son Gerónimo disappears in Berlin during the Days of Chaos in 2005. Memories of a return to the native land. Argentine writers as gangsters. Zombie schlock as allegory... The various pieces in the posthumous Secret of Evil extend the intricate, single web that is the work of Roberto Bolano.
Download or read book The American Granddaughter written by Inaam Kachachi and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-11-30 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "We let ourselves be won over by this novel that describes with such faithfulness and emotion the tearing apart of a country and a woman forever caught between two shores." ‚ÄîLe Monde "Full of poetry and freshness‚Ķ" ‚ÄîGuide de la rentree litteraire, Lire/Virgin WINNER OF FRANCE’S THE LAGARDERE PRIZESHORTLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL PRIZE OF ARABIC FICTIONRAISES IMPORTANT QUESTIONS ABOUT IDENTITY, BELONGING, AND PATRIOTISM In her award-winning novel, Inaam Kachachi portrays the dual tragedy of her native land: America’s failure and the humiliation of Iraq. The American Granddaughter depicts the American occupation of Iraq through the eyes of a young Iraqi-American woman, who returns to her country as an interpreter for the US Army. Through the narrator’s conflicting emotions, we see the tragedy of a country which, having battled to emerge from dictatorship, then finds itself under foreign occupation. At the beginning of America’s occupation of Iraq, Zeina returns to her war-torn homeland as an interpreter for the US Army. Her formidable grandmother—the only family member that Zeina believes she has in Iraq—gravely disapproves of her granddaughter’s actions. Then Zeina meets Haider and Muhaymin, two “brothers” she knows nothing of, and falls deeply in love with Muhaymin, a militant in the Al Mehdi Army. These experiences force her to question all her values.
Download or read book Modern Saudi Arabia written by Valerie Anishchenkova and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2020-06-01 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This thematic encyclopedia examines contemporary and historical Saudi Arabia, with entries that fall under such themes as geography, history, government and politics, religion and thought, food, etiquette, media, and much more. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, known for its petroleum reserves and leadership role in the Middle East, is explored in this latest addition to the Understanding Modern Nations series. Organized into thematic chapters, Modern Saudi Arabia covers both history and contemporary daily life. Chapter topics include: Geography; History; Government and Politics; Economy; Religion and Thought; Social Classes and Ethnicity; Gender, Marriage, and Sexuality; Education; Language; Etiquette; Literature and Drama; Art and Architecture; Music and Dance; Food; Leisure and Sports; and Media and Popular Culture. Each chapter contains an overview of the topic and alphabetized entries on examples of each theme. A detailed historical timeline spans from prehistoric times to the present. Special appendices are also included, offering profiles of a typical day in the life of representative members of Saudi society, a glossary, key facts and figures about Saudi Arabia, and a holiday chart. This volume will be useful for readers looking for specific topical information and for those who want to read entire chapters to gain a deeper perspective on aspects of modern Saudi Arabia.
Download or read book Ascension on the Wings of a Tale written by Abdallah Altaiyeb and published by Strategic Book Publishing & Rights Agency. This book was released on 2019-04-30 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This rich collection of contemporary short stories will sweep readers into the heat and passions of the Arabian world. The unique rhythm of each tale combines to create a collection that brings about greater understanding. From the opening tale, where a lovestruck woman plots to attract her neighbor, to the trials of a young woman braving a war zone to retrieve medication for her mother, this anthology is filled with themes and emotions that readers from all over the world will relate to. The writing styles are diverse. The story of a mythical bird, the arfaj, is reminiscent of Aesop’s Fables. There are even touches of the supernatural, as one author spins the story of a student who gets ethereal assistance preparing his graduate thesis. “It is very easy to simplify, stereotype, and misunderstand cultures that we are unfamiliar with. In choosing the pieces for translation, Abdallah Altaiyeb presents a society, family dynamics, and perspectives that, in many ways, mirror our lives in the West. Translating someone else’s work is a monumental task. Doing it well is an artform. This is a masterful job of choosing stories that paint vivid pictures that know no borders.” – Gene Gumbs, journalist and author
Download or read book Oranges in the Sun written by Deborah S. Akers and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The stories in Oranges in the Sun capture a distinctly unique vision of the world, embodying the range of emotional and material concerns of the peoples of the Arab Gulf region. Drawn from the increasingly rich literatures of Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar, and Kuwait, the stories also reflect the development of the short-story genre in the region. The introduction to the collection provides historical context, as well as a broad overview of the selections. -- Publisher description.
Download or read book Classical Arabic Stories written by Salma Khadra Jayyusi and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 426 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Short fiction was an immensely innovative art in the medieval Arab world and speaks to the urbanization of the Arab domain after Islam. It reflects the bustling life of Muslim Arabs and Islamized Persians and the sure stamp of an urbanity that had settled very staunchly after big conquests. Reading these texts today illuminates the wide spectrum of early Arab life and the influences and innovations that flourished so vibrantly in medieval Arab society. Classical Arabic Stories selects from an impressive corpus, including excerpts from seven seminal works: Ibn Tufail's novel, Hayy ibn Yaqzan; Kalila wa Dimna by Ibn al-Muqaffa; The Misers by al-Jahiz; The Brethren of Purity's The Protest of Animals Against Man; Al-Maqamat (The Assemblies) by al-Hamadhani and al-Hariri; Epistle of Forgiveness by al-Ma'arri; and the epic romance, Sayf Bin Dhi Yazan. Organized thematically, the volume begins with pre-Islamic tales, stories of rulers and other notables, and thrilling narratives of danger and warfare. It follows with tales of love, religion, comedy, and the strange and the supernatural.
Download or read book Daring to Drive written by Manal Sharif and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-06-13 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A memoir by a Saudi Arabian woman who became the unexpected leader of a movement to support women's rights describes how fundamentalism influenced her radical religious beliefs until her education, a job, and legal contradictions changed her perspectives.
Download or read book Consequences of Love written by and published by Jeff Jenkins. This book was released on with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Annie had it all. A beautiful home, adorable toddler, and just happened to snag the promising son of most prominent family in their quaint little town in east Texas. Her life was perfect. Or so it seemed. Atlas was a man with a haunted past whose mundane life consisted of hard work, predictability, and solitude. And he had to reason to hope for a change. A chance encounter sparks an unlikely friendship and as their two worlds begin to collide, everything they thought they knew, comes into question. The carefully-crafted walls they've built, begin to crumble as they're faced with a past they've been trying to forget and a future they're afraid to hope for.
