Middle East Literarary Landscapes
I gave, and received, this year a notable reminder that the cultures of the Middle-East — Iranian, Arabic, Turkish– have …
Category Archives: Art & Culture
Wedding Song by Naguib Mahfouz, Egypt
Wedding Song, by Naguib Mahfouz, Nobel Prize winning Egyptian author, was written in 1981 well into his writing life which …
The Sand Fish – a Novel from Dubai
The Sand Fish, a novel by Maha Gargash of Dubai, apparently written in English, is another of the suggestions for …
Women’s Prison — Iran
Quite unlike any women-in-prison movie you might have seen, or contemplated seeing, Manijeh Hekmat’s 2002 Women’s Prison, from Iran offers no …
The Thief and the Dogs by Naguib Mahfouz, Egypt
I wrote last week about an Egyptian novel, Stealth, by Sonallah Ibrahim, which while I liked I felt presented certain …
Day Break – A Prison Movie from Iran
Day break refers to the time of day when the guards in a Tehran prison come to the cells of …
The Day I Became a Woman – A Film from Iran
What an unexpected, unusual and brain shaping movie. The Day I Became a Woman is Marzieh Makhmalbaf‘s first film in …
Climate Change – Ravaging Adélie Penguins
In a book review of Fraser’s Penguins we get the bare, scary facts. As with spotted owls or the Abra …
Princesas a Film From Madrid
It’s rare to find ordinary working folks as the subjects of serious, well-done movies and even rarer when those workers …
Gigante: A Movie from Uruguay
It is so rare to see a movie, or read a story, about a big, shy gentle man that Gigante, …
Stealth a Novel by Sonallah Ibrahim, Egypt
Ignorance of Arabic writing in the West might only be exceeded by ignorance of that of any particular nationality in …
Alternatives to Amazon
The Google e-bookstore is finally open. Now, instead of going only to Amazon, or only to Barnes and Noble you can …