Welcome to our book review site go-pdf.online!
You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
A Land Without Jasmine
Winner of the 2013 Said Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation. A Land without Jasmine is a sexy, satirical detective story about the sudden disappearance of a young female student from Yemen's Sanaa University. Each chapter is narrated by a different character, beginning with Jasmine herself. The mystery surrounding her disappearance comes into clearer focus with each self-serving and idiosyncratic account provided by an acquaintance, family member, or detective. The hallucinatory ending, although appropriately foreshadowed, may come as a Sufi surprise for the reader. Less mystically inclined readers may want to reread this tale to construct an alternative ending. This short novel has echoes of both the Sherlock Holmes stories and The Catcher in the Rye as, in addition to the mystery and a murder, the novel contains candid discussions of coming of age in a land of sexual repression. Wajdi al-Ahdal is a satirical author with a fresh and provocative voice and an excellent eye for the telling details of his world.
Beirut39
‘Beirut39’ is a Hay Festival project which aims to select and celebrate 39 of the best young Arab writers as a centrepiece of the Beirut World Capital festivities in April 2010. Following the successful launch of ‘Bogotá 39’, which identified many of the most interesting upcoming Latin American talents, including Wendy Guerra, Junot Diaz (Pulitzer Prize), Santiago Roncagliolo and Juan Gabriel Vásquez (short-listed for the IFFP), ‘Beirut 39’ will bring to worldwide attention the best work from the Arab world. The judges will select from more than 300 submissions and the writers’ names will be unveiled in September 2009. The book will be published in English throughout the world (except the Arab world) by Bloomsbury, and in Arabic throughout the world and in English in the Arab World by Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing.
Oranges in the Sun
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.
Anubis
A Tuareg youth ventures into trackless desert on a life-threatening quest to find the father he remembers only as a shadow from his childhood, but the spirit world frustrates and tests his resolve. For a time, he is rewarded with the Eden of a lost oasis, but eventually, as new settlers crowd in, its destiny mimics the rise of human civilization. Over the sands and the years, the hero is pursued by a lover who matures into a sibyl-like priestess. The Libyan Tuareg author Ibrahim al-Koni, who has earned a reputation as a major figure in Arabic literature with his many novels and collections of short stories, has used Tuareg folklore about Anubis, the ancient Egyptian god of the underworld, to...
Cell Block Five
Being plucked from a Baghdad café and deposited in a cell block for political prisoners is a wakeup call for Aziz, the novel's hero and narrator, a young man who has been living on automatic pilot--as if he were a guest visiting his own life--and he is finally forced to come to terms with the flawed world we inhabit and shape. Although never charged with any offense, he must adjust to a lengthy stay in prison, where he is befriended by Salam the yard boss, Mun'im an idealistic university student with a beautiful sister named Salwa, Yusuf an idealist dispatched to the 'Swamp, ' Salman an anarchist schoolteacher, and Mustafa an aged farmer who dreams of an alternative society. While these imp...
Self Portrait in Green
'NDiaye is a hypnotic storyteller with an unflinching understanding of the rock-bottom reality of most people's life.' New York Times ' One of France's most exciting prose stylists.' The Guardian. Obsessed by her encounters with the mysterious green women, and haunted by the Garonne River, a nameless narrator seeks them out in La Roele, Paris, Marseille, and Ouagadougou. Each encounter reveals different aspects of the women; real or imagined, dead or alive, seductive or suicidal, driving the narrator deeper into her obsession, in this unsettling exploration of identity, memory and paranoia. Self Portrait in Green is the multi-prize winning, Marie NDiaye's brilliant subversion of the memoir. Written in diary entries, with lyrical prose and dreamlike imagery, we start with and return to the river, which mirrors the narrative by posing more questions than it answers.
The Monotonous Chaos of Existence
The stories within Hisham Bustani's The Monotonous Chaos of Existence explore the turbulent transformation in contemporary Arab societies. With a deft and poetic touch, Bustani examines the interpersonal with a global lens, connects the seemingly contradictory, and delves into the ways that international conflict can tear open the individuals that populate his world-all while pushing the narrative form into new and unexpected terrain.
The Mosquito Bite Author
Originally published in 2011, The Mosquito Bite Author is the seventh novel by the acclaimed Turkish author Barış Bıçakçı. It follows the daily life of an aspiring novelist, Cemil, in the months after he submits his manuscript to a publisher in Istanbul. Living in an unremarkable apartment complex in the outskirts of Ankara, Cemil spends his days going on walks, cooking for his wife, repairing leaks in his neighbor’s bathroom, and having elaborate imaginary conversations in his head with his potential editor about the meaning of life and art. Uncertain of whether his manuscript will be accepted, Cemil wavers between thoughtful meditations on the origin of the universe and the trajectory of political literature in Turkey, panic over his own worth as a writer, and incredulity toward the objects that make up his quiet world in the Ankara suburbs.
Suslov’s Daughter
As a young man growing up under communism in South Yemen, Imran finds himself drawn to Hawiya, the daughter of a high-ranking official in the ruling Marxist party. He departs Aden, the seaport city of his childhood, to study literature in Paris, hoping to 'see the sunset of capitalism with his own eyes.' Years later he returns to Yemen and meets Hawiya again - only to find that she is now a niqab-wearing Salafist, calling on people to join the conservative Islamist movement. The novel spans the 1960s to the early 21st century, from the independence of southern Yemen and the subsequent establishment of The People's Democratic Republic of Yemen to the Unification of Yemen in 1990 and the Arab Spring. Set against the backdrop of Yemeni history, Habib Abdelrab Sarori's Arabic Booker long-listed novel traces one man's lifelong search for love and his own political ideology.
Blood Feast
A cult classic by Morocco’s foremost writer of life on the margins. Malika Moustadraf (1969–2006) is a feminist icon in contemporary Moroccan literature, celebrated for her stark interrogation of gender and sexuality in North Africa. Blood Feast is the complete collection of Moustadraf’s published short fiction: haunting, visceral stories by a master of the genre. A teenage girl suffers through a dystopian rite of passage, a man with kidney disease makes desperate attempts to secure treatment, and a mother schemes to ensure her daughter passes a virginity test. Delighting in vibrant sensory detail and rich slang, Moustadraf takes an unflinching look at the gendered body, social class, illness, double standards, and desire, as lived by a diverse cast of characters. Blood Feast is a sharp provocation to patriarchal power and a celebration of the life and genius of one of Morocco’s preeminent writers.
