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      • Trusted Partner
        Fiction
        2017

        Remorse Test

        by Khalil Sweileh

        Remorse Test is Sweileh’s follow up to his novel Writing Love, which was the 2009 winner of The Mahfouz Medal for Literature. This semi-autobiographical novel, takes readers through the streets of Damascus and offers a first-hand look at life and loss during the Syrian civil war. The protagonist is a brilliant writer who is navigating a new, war-torn reality. While reminiscing about his past, he shows us what everyday life is like in Damascus—at once brutal and boring—and laments the missed opportunities and destruction the conflict has caused in his country. Drawing on his experience as a journalist, poet and novelist, author Khalil Sweileh writes about the psychological conflicts amid the shattered reality of place and society using language that is full of imagery. Remorse Test is an important addition to Syrian literature, both for its subject matter and unique use of narrative tools and vocabulary. (An extended English-language report on this book will be available soon.)

      • Trusted Partner
        Fiction
        2017

        Summer Rains

        Winner of the 2018 Sheikh Zayed Book Award for Young Author

        by Ahmad Al Qarmalawi

        Using music as a thread that connects the past to the present, this novel explores what happens when traditional and cultural heritage clash with modernity. The characters face the impact of modernization on heritage and arts versus the need to protect and preserve their traditional culture and must choose between the pursuit of materialism versus spiritual balance. Al Qarmalawi writes about a wide range of music from Sufism to the present era of electronic musical arts, and Summer Rains addresses the current Arab youth crisis, in which young people find themselves torn between fundamentalism and modernity. (An extended English-language report on this book will be available soon.)

      • Trusted Partner
        Fiction
        2021

        Eye on Egypt: Café Riche

        by Maisoon Saqer

        The book opens a unique door to the history of Cairo and its journey from a social and cultural perspective and aims to build a new and different narrative for this history—one that shows Cairo as a cosmopolitan, multicultural city. Cairo’s Cafe Riche has a deep cultural history and a broad creative and social heritage. Saqer describes it as “the site where endless friendships are established between the café and history.” Saqer’s narrative is not just about the small café, but rather constitutes observance and analysis of the presence of this café in the history of Egypt and how we can view many events surrounding it. Here there is no separation between the political and the cultural, between the historical, the social, and the artistic. The book combines history and narrative, which makes it a documented historical biography on the one hand and a creative work on the other. It also documents an important era in Egypt’s cultural history by examining the cultural and social transformations in modern Egyptian history and highlighting prominent intellectuals and creators associated with the cafe and the history of intellectual life in Egypt.

      • Trusted Partner
        Fiction
        2021

        Strangers at Home

        by Ezzat El-Kamhawi

        The novel brings together residents of a multi-story building. In a world besieged by COVID-19, Ezzat El-Kamhawi’s new novel places its main characters in a fictional world dominated by isolation and obsessions, where people are forced to surrender to a crushing flood of memories.   FROM THE SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE: “The novel explores the pandemic and its impacts on social life in Egypt, by presenting examples of the people who suffered from the disease. Structurally, it interacts with other literary genres and combines realism and fantasy.”

      • Trusted Partner
        Fiction
        2021

        Composition Biography: Thoughts and Confusion Carry Me

        by Said Bengrad

        The book is a story that combines childhood living in the 1960s deserts, before current forms of technology and virtualization. In this narrative text, it was not a matter of resurrecting a moment in a fleeting life in a non-stop chronology, but of shaping it into concepts that reconstruct it in an abstract way. The text does not present an individual story, but rather redraws the boundaries of an entire generation’s experience, a generation that saw the light after Morocco’s independence, with all of its subsequent achievements, failures, victories, and tragedies. The narrator in the text does not present ready-made theories; instead, he captures life in its events and facts and elevates it to an abstract level pending contemplation. The event in the text is an excuse for restoring life in the form of a “human experience,” and that is the outlet for returning academic knowledge to its role as an incubator for people’s concerns as depicted by their narratives, stories, and beliefs. What people experience by instinct; the story turns into another story constructed in the abstract. We do not simply live, we also contemplate our own living, and this is the sublime function of narration.

      • Trusted Partner
        Fiction
        2020

        A Laughing Sun

        by Bayan Al Safadi

        These poetic tales for children address things around us such as the wall, the stone, the ear, the river, and others, humanize them, and present them as free verse poetry. It also includes an audio CD containing song versions of the tales, all of which are loaded with pedagogical, aesthetic, and humanitarian messages. The importance of “A Laughing Sun” stems from its adoption of the poetic tale in most poems. It carries implications for reverence of science, arts, freedom, and human diversity, and highlights the beauty of nature and the protection of the environment. The poems are replete with a sense of cheerfulness and humor, and the collection focuses on the imagination and stimulates both scientific and creative thinking.

      • Trusted Partner
        Fiction
        2022

        My Date With the Light

        by Raja Malah

        The character of the novel “My Date with the Light” was born with a rare disease that gradually eliminates her sense of sight. From an early age, she realized that she was in a struggle with time and loss. Who said that this little girl in that remote village between its harsh mountains and deep valleys will one day be able to turn her date with darkness into a date with light, insight, and hope? She left her village in search of scientific horizons and dreamy expanses. Twenty years later, she decided to return to her hometown, believing in her role in assisting the children of her village. In her cabin, between the night silence and train whistles, she begins to tell her life story so we can learn about the details of her childhood, her handicap, her family, her village that languishes in poverty and destitution... To witness how she was finally able to make her way towards achieving her dream with rare courage, and touch the light of success, despite losing sight. Age Range: 9-12 years

      • Trusted Partner
        Fiction
        2021

        The Mystery of the Glass Ball

        by Maria Dadouch

        Ghassan Al Ghurairi had to accompany his old grandfather to the Leewy Museum in the middle of the desert. They are attending a ceremony honoring his grandfather, who spent his entire life in service of the desert. As they head to their destination onboard an ancient train, Ghassan came across a conspiracy plotted by the criminal Aqrabawi and his bald friend— disguised as two elderly women—to poison the oasis’s water supply. In place of the ecological life in the desert, they want to make way for an international resort and take over the place. Although Ghassan doesn’t mean to confront this conspiracy alone, he finds himself embroiled face-to-face with the criminals. Fortunately for him, a girl appears at his side to help. Sophia Al-Adnani from Chiparazumpia is also heading with her grandfather and his great eco-friendly invention, the glass ball, to the Leewy Museum, where her grandfather is to be honored. The two children are able to hold off the criminals initially, but not for long, as Aqrabawi and his friend soon reappear—this time deadest on revenge against the two children. Ghassan and Sophia resist in the face of intimidation and threats, and, using clever intrigue, they manage to disarm the conspirators and escape seconds before the desert guards arrive and arrest the criminals.

      • Trusted Partner
        Fiction
        2022

        Al-Qata’i: Ibn Tulun's Trilogy

        by Reem Bassiouney

        The Ibn Tulun Trilogy is a stunning literary work that offers readers a fascinating glimpse into a significant period in the history of Egypt. ///This novel interweaves historical facts with a continuous narrative about Egypt, exploring how it was before and after the arrival of Ahmad Ibn Tulun. His independence and the construction of the city of Al-Qata’i, along with the establishment of a powerful army, are vividly portrayed. As the story progresses, readers learn of Ahmad Ibn Tulun’s death and his son’s reign, as well as the attempts to destroy his legacy and the fate of Al-Qata’i. ///Al-Qata’i is a story that explores the conflict between construction and destruction, the fickleness of fate, and the highs and lows of human existence. It tells of the meeting and parting of loved ones, the struggle between love and hate, oppression and justice, power and helplessness, and the ultimate triumph of victory and the agony of defeat.

      • Trusted Partner
        Fiction
        2022

        Rejoice, My Heart

        by Alawiya Sobh

        Ghassan, a musician and Oud player, leaves for New York, fleeing the Lebanese civil war after his extremist bother, Afif, murdered his older and pacifist brother Jamal, who sought to open the door to Muslim-Christian dialogue. In New York, Ghassan struggles to erase all his memories but his thoughts would always bring him back to his hometown, Dar El Ezz, as it was long before the war. ///Soon, he falls in love with and marries Kristin, becomes more emotionally stable, and embraces American culture. But when he must return to Lebanon for his father’s funeral, nostalgia for his homeland and a series of events force Ghassan to face a convergence of two cultures. ///“Efrah Ya Qalbi” (Rejoice, My Heart!) is a novel about love, music, identity, one’s sense of belonging, brotherly conflicts, and the diaspora. It dives into the lives, troubles, and dilemmas of the characters. ///The stories intertwine amid a fascinating narrative, thus revealing the turmoil and troubles of the Lebanese community torn by wars and outbursts. The novel also addresses the relationship between the East and the West, where struggling and cracked identities are silenced and offers a new vision through analysis and narration.

      • Trusted Partner
        Fiction
        2020

        Over the Jumhuriya Bridge

        by Shahad Al Rawi

        This novel, a bestseller in Baghdad, starts with the first two American tanks that crossed over the Jumhuriya Bridge into the heart of Baghdad in 2003, as the narrator watches events unfold from her grandfather’s house at the riverfront. That’s when her emigration journey begins, setting her on a path to experience both love and death away from her country. After her mother passes away, her father resorts to quantum physics in an attempt to interpret the meaning of existence, while the nameless protagonist discovers the novels of Virginia Woolf, Charles Dickens, and Francoise Sagan. ///The author depicts how different generations of the same family live different worlds, separated by experiences and time despite occupying the same physical spaces. The Jumhuriya Bridge threads symbolism throughout the novel—ushering in the beginning of the military fall of the city and later being the setting of sporadic events, from innocent flirting, to gulls, down to the shocking event that pushes the story up to its climax.

      • Trusted Partner
        Fiction
        2022

        The End of the Desert

        by Said Khatibi

        On a nice fall day of 1988, Zakiya Zaghwani was found lying dead at the edge of the desert, giving way to a quest to discover the circumstances surrounding her death. While looking for whoever was involved in the death of the young singer, nearby residents discover bit by bit their involvement in many things other than the crime itself. ///The story takes place in a town near the desert. And as with Khatibi’s previous novels, this one is also marked by a tight plot, revolving around the murder of a singer who works in a hotel. This sets off a series of complex investigations that defy easy conclusions and invite doubt about the involvement of more than one character. /// Through the narrators of the novel, who also happen to be its protagonists, the author delves into the history of colonialism and the Algerian War of Independence and its successors, describing the circumstances of the story whose events unfold throughout the month. As such, the characters suspected of killing the singer are not only accused of a criminal offense, but are also concerned, as it appears, with the great legacy that the War of Independence left, from different aspects.///The novel looks back at a critical period in the modern history of Algeria that witnessed the largest socio-political crisis following its independence in 1988. While the story avoids the immediate circumstances of the war, it rather invokes the events leading up to it and tracks its impact on the social life, while capturing the daily life of vulnerable and marginalized groups. /// Nonetheless, those residents’ vulnerability does not necessarily mean they are innocent. As it appears, they are all involved in a crime that is laden with symbolism and hints at the status of women in a society shackled by a heavy legacy of a violent, wounded masculinity. This approach to addressing social issues reflects a longing to break loose from the stereotypical discourse that sets heroism in a pre-defined mold and reduces the truth to only one of its dimensions.

      • Trusted Partner
        Fiction
        2022

        Where to, O Poem

        by Ali Jaafar Al Allaq

        This autobiographical work centers on literary creativity. Poet Ali Jaafar Alallaq recollects his academic and professional experiences, as well as their diverse ventures into poetic, literary, critical, and academic writing earlier in his life. The book covers the poet’s upbringing in a humble, impoverished village, his family’s subsequent move to Baghdad in the early 1950s, and his journey up until the present day. ///The biography details a plethora of human, cultural, and poetic events that impacted Alallaq’s perspective on events he witnessed, interacted with, or was involved in. These events range in intensity and scope, spanning from his childhood years in the countryside to navigating significant societal changes in Baghdad, and from his early explorations in writing and literary journalism to pursuing doctoral studies in the United Kingdom. He reflects on enduring two destructive wars that displaced Iraq’s people, leading to a life of exile and reliance on divine providence under the night sky. ///Beginning in 1991, Alallaq began a long period abroad that included six years of teaching at Sanaa University, followed by ten years of work at the United Arab Emirates University from 1997 to 2015. He produced a remarkable body of poetry and critical works during his tenure as a university instructor and his active involvement in cultural and poetic affairs in Sanaa and later in the UAE, which continues to this day. ///In this book, Alallaq takes on several roles, including narrator, contemplator, restorer, and descriptor, and expresses himself using elevated literary language. As a result, the work serves as an aesthetic testament to the purity of language as well as a cohesive account of the ups and downs of daily life. Despite living and working in a prosperous and stable environment for many years, he remains emotionally and imaginatively connected to the events and struggles affecting his country and the Arab world. He continues to document his aesthetic and patriotic testimony of current happenings, as clearly evidenced in his present autobiography.

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