Contemporary Iraqi Fiction
A book of contemporary writers from Iraq should be a welcome corrective to the bias our current notions of Iraq …
Category Archives: Fiction
“I Think of You” — Stories from Ahdaf Soueif, Egypt and England
Giving birth in a Muslim hospital where a sign in English reads, ‘Under no circumstance you must be alone with …
The Long Way Back by Fuad al-Takarli: A Novel from Iraq
The ascension of Saddam Hussein to the peak of Iraqi power began in 1958 when a coup led by Brigadier …
Every Man Dies Alone — Hans Fallada, Germany 1947
No less than Primo Levi, Herman Hesse and Thomas Mann have sung the praises of Hans Fallada, the novelist who …
The Last of the Angels by Fadhil al-Azzawi, Iraq
Fadhil al-Azzawi’s 1992 The Last of the Angels while not a particularly long book (275 pages in the Free Press …
Season of Migration to the North — Tayeb Salih, Sudan
I’ve been trying to keep my focus on fiction and film from the North African/Middle Eastern countries where the 2011 …
Nawal El Saadawi: Still in the Mix in Cairo at 80
Nick Kristof in one of his posts from Tahrir Square in Cairo, talks about a hero of his, Dr. Nawal …
Middle East Literarary Landscapes
I gave, and received, this year a notable reminder that the cultures of the Middle-East — Iranian, Arabic, Turkish– have …
Hiroshima Joe – A Novel
Seeing the smoking wasteland of Hiroshima, particularly the blasted home and shredded family of a friend immediately after the Bomb …
Muddy River: A Town in China
The greater the flood of news the faster we are carried along. We have time to see only the surfaces …
Maria Dolores: A Story
This is a story I wrote many years ago while living in Spain. It was published by the New Orleans …
The Short Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
I’ve never been a big fan of the American fiction of the suffering middle and upper classes, the lost academics, …