Bøker i Middle East Literature In Translation-serien

The Libyan landscape is one of the most diverse and breathtaking, replete with barren deserts, vast ocean coasts, and a stunning display of earth's elements. Al-Koni, an award-winning and critically acclaimed Arabic writer, reflects on this fragile environment and the increasing threats to its existence in A Sleepless Eye, a collection of the poet's desert wisdom.

Shajar al-Durr, known as Tree of Pearls, was one of the most famous Arab queens and the only woman in the medieval Arab world to rule in her own name. In this eponymous novel, Zaydan charts the fall of the Ayyubid Dynasty and the rise of the Mamluke Dynasty through the adventures of Tree of Pearls and Rukn al-Din Baybars, a young Mamluke commander who eventually triumphs as the ruler of Egypt.

Telling the story of life, love, and the demands of marriage and motherhood, the author gives readers a portrait of one woman's struggle to adapt to the complexity of life in modern Iran. She demystifies contemporary Iran by taking readers beyond the stereotypes and into the lives of individuals.

A novel of quixotic adolescent longing and the enduring search for self.

It has been said that the difference between a language and a dialect is that a language is a dialect with an army. This title explores the tension between dynamics of literary influence and canon formation within the Arabic literary tradition. It challenges the reader to re-examine notions of translation, bilingualism, and postcoloniality.

The Muslim Suicide focuses on the life of an actual historical character, Ibn Sabin (1217-69), who, born in the town of Murcia in Andalus (Arab Spain), ended his life while on pilgrimage to Mecca.

Provides a comprehensive introduction to classical Arabic poetry. Covering the period roughly of 500-1250 CE, this volume features original translations and illuminating discussions of a number of major classical Arabic poems from a variety of genres.

Rediscovered in Syria in the late 19th century, this account relates the experiences of Reverend Elias al-Musili, a priest of the Chaldean Church and the first known visitor to the Americas from the Middle East. Supported by Spain and the pope, he offers a unique perspective on the New World.

Translation of: Al-Dunya fi ayun al-malaikah.

Features 22 stories, an excerpt from a novella, and fifteen poems rendered into English by some of the best-known translators of Turkish literature. Sait Faik's chiaroscuro world is brought into focus by an introductory essay on utopian poetics and lyrical stylistics of this Turkish writer.

Gathers work from sixteen Iraqi writers, all translated from Arabic into English. Shedding a bright light on the rich diversity Iraqi experience, Shakir Mustafa has included selections by Iraqi women, Iraqi Jews now living in Israel, and Christians and Muslims living both in Iraq and abroad. While each voice is distinct, they are united in writing about a homeland that has suffered.

A novel that recounts the efforts of a young man to explore his own history and identity through his encounters with the family and friends who surround him.

A master of the short story form, Muhammad Zafzf is one of Morocco's greatest narrative writers. This anthology, the first collection of his work translated into English, is a tribute to the remarkable influence he exerted on an entire generation of Moroccan storytellers. Zafzf's stories are set within a variety of contexts, each portraying a slice of life, a simple struggle for survival in a challenging world that is changing at a rapid pace.

At the heart of this volume is the translation of a fourteenth-century Turkish version of the Joseph story, better known to Western readers from the version in Genesis. Hickman provides us with a new lens: we see the drama of the Old Testament prophet Joseph, son of Jacob, through Muslim eyes.

A novel of life in the mixed culture that existed in Southern Spain before the expulsion of Arabs and Jews, following the life of Abu Jaafar, the bookbinder, and his family as they witness Christopher Columbus' triumphant parade through the streets.

Hilmi Yavuz is among Turkey's most celebrated poets. Containing English translations, this work offers a glimpse into the complex and expressive poetry of Yavuz, introducing traditional Ottoman forms and themes into a familiar poetic landscape. It discusses Yavuz's work within the world of Turkish poetry.

Tells the author's love story through alternating journal entries and with a complex layering of voices, revealing how a love affair takes shape through twin perspectives of a famed male novelist and the woman who desires him.

The earliest Turkish verses, dating from the sixth century A.D., were love lyrics. Since then love has dominated the Turks' poetic modes and moods - pre-Islamic, Ottoman classic, folk, modern. In style, form and sensibility, this collection offers a broad spectrum.

Set in Geneva, Switzerland, around the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, this intricately plotted novel probes the emotional misfortunes of Arab men and women fleeing the horror of war only to find their ways of life constantly challenged by their foreign surroundings.

Writing in a symbolic and minimalist style, author Sonallah Ibrahim has been called the Egyptian Kafka. This wry take on Kafka's "The Trial" revolves around its narrator's attempts to petition successfully the elusive ruling body of his country, known simply as "the committee".

As one of Egyptian theater's leading contemporary playwrights, Alfred Farag has had a profound influence on shaping Arabic drama and Egyptian cultural politics. This book chronicles Farag's career and offers a critical perspective on his creative output and the condition of Egyptian theater in the 1970s through the 1990s.

How lethal is love, how dangerous is woman? And how sensual is the yearning for immortality? This book presents the drama of Jummo's life, the tragic arc of her affair with her childhood sweetheart and her lifelong love for the mysterious Sidi Wadhana, a more-than-human emissary from the Netherworld.

Depicts the childhood of Murtada al-Shamikh and his return forty years later to his home in the medina or old city of Tunis. After being taken from his mother and raised in his father's home where he was physically abused and emotionally marginalized, Murtada spends a life of anxiety wandering the world.

Sheds light on the dreams, customs, and everyday concerns of people living in historic obscurity on the fringe of the glitzy, petrodollar kingdoms of the Middle East. This tale begins on a worksite in Egypt's western desert. In the middle of nowhere, railway men and locals wait in hope for the annual return of a ""distant train.

Al Ayshuni, a middle-aged painter, has fallen in love with a younger woman, the alluring Ghaylana. But fate intervenes when she leaves him for new adventures in Spain. Now, Al Ayshuni befriends Ghaylana's impressionable daughter and fights to recapture the ""fugitive light"" of his youth.

First published in 1940 and now translated into English, this work comprises three novellas of love and death in the Egyptian countryside. The stories offer the reader an insight into the intimate geographical and psychological spaces of the different Egyptian classes and upbringings.

Featuring a variety of poems about social justice, love, evocations of history, humanitarian concerns, and other themes, this anthology contains a representative selection of modern Turkish poems that convey in faithful translations, the full spectrum of Turkish emotions, humor, intellectual explorations, joys, and agonies.