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Consisting of sixty short stories by forty women writers from across the Arab world, this collection opens numerous windows onto Arab culture and society and offers keen insights into what Arab women feel and think. The stories deal not only with feminist issues but also with topics of a social, cultural, and political nature. Different styles and modes of writing are represented, along with a diversity of techniques and creative approaches, and the authors present many points of view and various ways of solving problems and confronting situations in everyday life. Lively, outspoken, and provocative, these stories are essential reading for anyone interested in the Arab world.
Drawing on insights from psychology, sociology, anthropology, religion, history, and literature, this book examines early and contemporary writings of male authors from across the Arab world to explore the traditional and evolving nature of father-son relationships in Arab families.
Cohen-Mor examines the concept of fate in the Arab world through readings of religious texts, poetry, fiction, and folklore. Offering 16 modern short stories as illustrations of her analysis, she contends that belief in fate continues to play a pivotal role in the Arabs' outlook on life and society.
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This study explores the mother-daughter relationship as the most fundamental and most intimate female relationship and as the cornerstone of Arab family life. Drawing on autobiographical and semifictional works by women writers from across the Arab world, the study offers a first-hand account of how Arab women view and experience this primary bond. The author uses both early and contemporary writings of Arab women to illuminate the traditional and evolving nature of mother-daughter relationships in Arab families and how these family dynamics reflect and influence modern Arab life. The compelling narratives demystify the institutions of family and motherhood and show the potential of mothers and daughters to transform the patriarchal family and thus the fabric of Arab society. A groundbreaking work that fills a void in cross-cultural studies, it is of interest to scholars and students of Middle Eastern studies, women’s studies, and family studies.
Mahmoud Darwish: Palestine’s Poet and the Other as the Beloved focuses on Palestinian national poet Mahmoud Darwish (1941–2008), whose poetry has helped to shape Palestinian identity and foster Palestinian culture through many decades of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Dalya Cohen-Mor explores the poet’s romantic relationship with “Rita,” an Israeli Jewish woman whom he had met in Haifa in his early twenties and to whom he had dedicated a series of love poems and prose passages, among them the iconic poem “Rita and the Gun.” Interwoven with biographical details and diverse documentary materials, this exploration reveals a fascinating facet in the poet’s personality, his self-definition, and his attitude toward the Israeli other. Comprising a close reading of Darwish’s love poems, coupled with many examples of novels and short stories from both Arabic and Hebrew fiction that deal with Arab-Jewish love stories, this book delves into the complexity of Arab-Jewish relations and shows how romance can blossom across ethno-religious lines and how politics all too often destroys it.
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This elegant, haunting novel takes us deep into the world of bookstore owner Boualem Yekker. He lives in a country being overtaken by the Vigilant Brothers, a radically conservative party that seeks to control every element of life according to the laws of their stringent moral theology: no work of beauty created by human hands should rival the wonders of their god. Once-treasured art and literature are now despised. ø Silently holding his ground, Boualem withstands the new regime, using the shop and his personal history as weapons against puritanical forces. Readers are taken into the lush depths of the bookseller's dreams, the memories of his now-empty family life, his passion for literature, then yanked back into the terror and drudgery of his daily routine by the vandalism, assaults, and death warrants that afflict him. ø From renowned Algerian author Tahar Djaout we inherit a brutal and startling story that reveals how far an ordinary human being will go to maintain hope.
David Ramsey's reinterpretation of the Edward FitzGerald English-language version of the classic Omar Khayyam poem, The Rubaiyat, began with his displeasure of the oft-quoted verse: "Here with a loaf of Bread Beneath..." The author says: "I thought this sounded more Victorian than Persian. I think Omar meant something more like this: 'With a book of verse beneath the bough...' For my own amusement I then proceeded to deflower other of Fitzgerald's translations of Khayyam's poetry. The challenge was to make suitable alternatives to those famous verses that have made The Rubaiyat one of the best-known works of poetry in the English language. One might say that I plagiarized the author, or his principal translator, or both--but I consider this more as an unholy collaboration between the three of us over the centuries. I hope my two unwitting collaborators would not be displeased with my reinterpretation of their efforts." Ramsey's irreverent verses are amusing, full of philosophical wit, and very relevant indeed to today's free-swinging culture. Great reading! Great fun!
A riveting memoir of the first Israeli-born Jewish American to be sent as a Peace Corps volunteer to a closed Arab society. A good memoir is a survivor’s tale—the story of a person who has faced obstacles and made it through well enough to tell it. Dalya Cohen-Mor, a Sabra-born American woman, volunteered to serve in the Peace Corps, went through a lengthy and highly competitive application process, was accepted, and was sent to serve in the predominantly Palestinian country Jordan, of all countries. Upon arrival in Jordan, Cohen-Mor was instructed by Peace Corps supervisors to conceal her Jewish identity, use an alias instead of her real last name, and pretend that she was Christian so ...