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Nine-year old Mohammed is facing his first week in a new city and the fourth grade at a new school. He's lonley and his  desire for acceptance is threatened by a classroom bully and the intrusive curiosity of his classmates. As the week unfolds, Mohammed befriends Noah, a Chinese-American boy, and together they figure out their school survival strategies and bond over their unusual lunches, immigrant families, band practice, and love of soccer. Mohammed’s tough and defiant older sister Zaynab, who wears a hijab and is also faced with harassment from other students, is torn by her desire to fit in and be a “normal” American teenager while staying true to her religion. Mohammed reaches a crisis when his fourth-grade class begins a segment on family histories. He finds himself puzzling over the absence of Palestine on the world map. Zaynab, agonizing over the dress code rules for the swim team, is on the brink of taking off her hijab. At home their grandmother, (Sitti) who came to the US from a refugee camp in Bethlehem, notices they are struggling and decides to share her story. Each day after school, through a series of vivid flashbacks told in the first person, she describes living in a peasant village west of Jerusalem in 1943, fleeing as a ten-year-old girl in 1948, and struggling for survival in a refugee camp until she decides to leave to join her oldest son in the United States. As Mohammed develops an understanding of his family, he learns that he is grounded in the US and in Palestine and comes to understand all the gifts he has received from Sitti, the stories, the food, the sense of place and dignity, the love and yearning for the land.

"Shahrazad's Gift is a collection of linked short stories set in contemporary Cairo--magical, absurd and humorous. The author focuses on the off-beat, little-known stories, far from CNN news: a Swedish belly dancer who taps into the Oriental fantasies of her clientele; a Japanese woman studying Arabic, driven mad by the noise and chaos of the city; a frustrated Egyptian housewife who becomes obsessed by the activities of her Western gay neighbor; an American journalist who covered the civil war in Beirut who finds friendship with her Egyptian dentist. These stories are told in the tradition of A Thousand and One Nights"--

Fluid is a fascinating collage of short stories that explore a kaleidoscope of intriguing characters with vastly differing perspectives, as they navigate their lives within society’s most challenging contemporary issues.

"Frederic Hunter takes us to Belgian Congo, portraying colonial administration of millions of Congolese and the uprising instigated by a healer who has broken no laws, yet directly challenges the authority of the ruling Belgian government. Governor-general Count Lippens must deal with this challenge and appease the ruling class in the Congo"--

"In the wake of the 9-11 attacks in 2001, Linda Sartor was dismayed to see her country responding in ways that punish civilians in foreign lands, lending credibility to Al Qaeda's depiction of the US as an imperial state and an enemy of Islam. For the next decade Linda engaged in self-styled citizen diplomacy, traveling to six war-torn countries to see for herself, and to do what she could to provide unarmed civilian protective support to locals in their efforts to attain peace and justice. Besides Afghanistan, Linda traveled to Israel/Palestine, Iraq, Sri Lanka, Iran, and Bahrain with several different Peace and Justice organizations. Linda Sartor takes us behind the headlines. She hopes that her stories will inspire readers to confront fear, to follow their hearts, and to believe that ordinary people can ultimately undermine and reform the harsh imperial and economic systems that are too often accepted as a baseline "reality" when the nations of the world exercise power"--

ARAB BOY DELIVERED is an intimate story set in the late sixties. As Michael maneuvers through the working-class neighborhood delivering groceries, he enters the homes and lives of his customers. He’s confronted by the violence of racist bullies and falls for the radical college coed who teaches him about sex, love, and protest. Michael grieves with the mother whose only son died in the Vietnam War and is embraced by the first black couple who move into the neighborhood. They all shape him, and through the conflict of hate, acts of kindness, and his sexual awakening, Michael struggles to define his identity.

40-somethings filmmaker David Lang and cabaret singer Holly Markham seem to have finally reached the end of their turbulent relationship when Holly discovers that she’s pregnant. David has a mystical experience that causes him to become the unborn baby’s protector. But Holly­—well, that’s another story.

"Amidst the chaos that followed independence from Belgium in 1960, Kivu was spared . . . and survived. It was a "little paradise" as strife and disorder drew ever nearer. Frederic Hunter sketches local characters, both whimsical and profound, probes the inanities of US Foreign Policy, and paints the darkness gathering beyond Kivu, forces that would inevitably overwhelm this quaint, quirky realm of hope and humanity. As a young Foreign Service officer, Frederic Hunter was assigned to the Congo in 1963, three years after independence. He expected to encounter heat, jungle, hardship, violence. Instead, he found the Kivu, a kind of paradise, nestled among Rift Valley lakes. The climate was benign, the beauty extraordinary. It was peaceful, the people were splendid and got along. He lived in Bukavu, a town that occupied five peninsulas jutting into Lake Kivu. Furthermore, an African king lived atop the nearby green and often fog-bound mountains. This memoir lets you accompany these Kivu adventures. We get to know Hunter's Number One Congolese colleague, a womanizing rogue. We meet local politicians who all attend a luncheon and discuss strategies for victory in the coming election-seemingly oblivious to the point that they were competing against one another for the post. There are expats: an American academic intoxicated by Africa, a missionary woman who has lost track of time. Hunter's truck sank in a mud pit at night and he was soon surrounded by a herd of the most dangerous animals in Africa: hippos. Hunter risks more, however, when a local Kivu woman catches his eye and then steals his heart"--

Forthose who value mental fitness, Nietzsche Awakens! by Farid Younes is anessential read. In this slim volume, the author reworks all of Nietzsche'sfamous aphorisms . . . Why not? . . . and then invites Nietzsche himself torespond! FaridYounes is a philosopher, architect, and college professor who makes his home inByblos, a coastal town in northern Lebanon. He lived through both the Lebaneseand now the Syrian civil wars. Like all Lebanese, he has plenty of"serious" in his life. The need for him and other Lebanese is to findthe distance needed to cope and if possible to move events and circumstances ina better direction. Nietzsche Awakens! is a refined and disciplined versionof a coffee house like the famous "Haven--The Cabin" that rests on aByblos hilltop looking out over the Mediterranean. Here, the author's neighbors meditate over their chess boards orchat quietly and put the pieces of their world back together.Nietzsche Awakens! is a mind game, that could almost havebeen lifted from conversations in The Cabin. It is the author's invitation toeach of us to test and tone our intellect, to use our intelligence to createclever word play and to define razor sharp slices of meaning. At a certain point, the parlor game of this book reaches depths thatNietzsche (a famously troubled soul) experienced in his own life--depths thatFarid Younes and his fellow citizens know all too well. Farid's discourse is aprecise and rarefied melody that floats through his book . . . and yet his texthas a base line, far below, that is sensed rather than read, felt more thanheard: it is visceral, a physical pressure, a movement of darkness. It is thetangible mental byproduct of the unspeakable cruelty and carnage of war and thedespair of refugees who line the Lebanese streets. Where are we . . . who are we . . . if our minds do not work? Mentalfitness can be a gift, but it is also an obligation of each one of us toourselves, our families, our communities. As the Muslim and Christian knights of Crusader times battled for theiridea of truth in these steep mountains above the Mediterranean, today humanityitself is called to combat the prejudice, stupidity, rigid thinking, blatantself-dealing, and the other idiocies that prevent us from addressing the primarychallenges of our time. Nietzsche Awakens! is a vigorous mental work out . .. with much more below the surface.

Musa Al-Halool, from Raqqa Syria, has put together 36 tales on the subject of the Syrian Civil War, the Assad government, and the authoritarian style of other Arab dictators. The heart of The Dusk Visitor is short fiction that paints a dystopian landscape, Kafkaesque, life that appears to offer hope and yet is riven with absurdity, unfreedom, fear, and death.

Girl Fighters is a novel based on a true account of two girls who passed as men and fought in Yemen's 1960's civil war.The characters in our story are two cousins who dress as males and are known as Mohammed and Ali. The men in their family have died in war. The girls feel it is their duty to seek revenge, the code of honor in tribal society. However in Yemen girls are hidden from public view?behind walls, doors, and veils. When Mohammed and Ali decide to seek revenge, they ironically violate another tribal expectation: that fighters be males.At first, Mohammed and Ali are inspired by their act of resistance. The war was compelling, a ?noble cause.? Later, they come to realize that war benefits corrupt political leaders and business interests, both local and international. Against the backdrop of war they gain new perspectives. Taking off veils and dressing as men opens their eyes to gender inequities. They question female roles in tribal society. For example, boys can be educated at mosques, but girls cannot attend schools.Mohammed plans to open a girl's school when the war ends. Ali is a military medic. When Ali is killed, Mohammed confronts loss and guilt. She cannot return to her former life. The dream of educating girls cannot happen as a ?man.? In tribal society, as ?a woman? she must marry and produce children. Against the odds, Mohammed reshapes her life as leader in the community.