Author: Imīl ḤabībīPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 196
Book Description
Book is CURRENTLY MISSING 2/92/RV.
Author: Saraya, the Ogre's Daughter
Author: حبيبي، اميلPublisher: Ibis Press
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 228
Book Description
Fiction. Middle Eastern Studies. Translated from the Arabic by Peter Theroux. This hypnotically lyrical last novel by the leading Palestinian prose writer of the twentieth century is equal parts allegory, folk tale, memoir, political commentary, and ode to a ruined landscape. Rendered for the first time ever in English by one of the leading translators of contemporary Arabic literature, it is a haunting tour de force-essential reading for anyone interested in the imaginative life of the Middle East. "In Arabic, Habiby has had no precursors and has had no successors.... Acknowledging his debt to Voltaire and Swift, he has proven inimitable." -Middle East Magazine.
Rose, Rose, I Love You
Author: Chen-ho WangPublisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 9780231500463
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 210
Book Description
In this lively translation of Wang Chen-ho's ribald satire, a Taiwanese village loses all perspective—and common sense—at the prospect of fleecing a shipload of lusty and lonely American soldiers. A rotund, excitable high school English teacher receives word that 300 GIs are coming from Vietnam for a weekend of R and R. He persuades the owners of the Big 4 brothels that they will all take in more U.S. dollars if the pleasure girls can speak a little English; his plan is to train fifty specially selected prostitutes in a "Crash Course for Bar Girls." The teacher, Dong Siwen (his name means "refinement") enlists the eager support of local Councilman Qian and the managers of such elite establishments as Night Fragrances and Valley of Joy. "If the girls learn how to say three things in English— Hello, How are you? and Want to do you-know-what? everything is A-OK!" But what begins as a simple plan to teach a few English phrases quickly becomes absurdly elaborate: courses will include an "Introduction to American Culture," a crash course on global etiquette, and a workshop in personal hygiene taught by Dr. "Venereal" Wang. Siwen, a virgin himself, dreads any bad P.R. from "Saigon Rose" (slang for a particularly virulent strain of v.d.) and so demands the finest conveniences and conditions for "servicing the Yanks." "Sanitation above all.... Do you think U.S. dollars will float out of their pockets in crummy rooms like that?" The Americans must not leave with a poor impression of Taiwan; not only Dong Siwen and the Big 4 but the entire nation would lose face. One of the most carefully wrought narratives in contemporary Chinese literature, Rose, Rose, I Love You will appeal not only to readers of fiction but also to those interested in Taiwanese identity and the effects of Westernization on Asian society.
Prairies of Fever
Author: Ibrahim NasrallahPublisher: Interlink Books
ISBN: 9781566561068
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 176
Book Description
Prairies of Fever is one of the foremost modernist novels of our time. A negation of chronology and sequence, a cohesve relationship between form and content, and a temporal parallelism of events, memories and dreams, give the novel a unique tenor. The central character, Muhammad Hammad, is a young teacher hired, like hundreds of others from all over the Arab world, to teach in a remote part of the Arabian peninsula. The novel recounts his harrowing struggle to retain any sense of identity at all in the bleak and alienating place he finds himself in, caught between the infinite expanse of desert and the intolerable narrowness of village life. His psychic and physical anguish, beset as he is by hallucinations, fantasies and the indifference of the villagers, is mirrored in the writing of the novel: time appears unfixed as the story jumps from past to future and back to the present; there is an eerie fusion of the animal and human worlds; and reality and fantasy become hard to distinguish. The result is an exceptional poetic novel, disturbing, evocative and deeply moving.
Wild Thorns
Author: Salar KhalifehPublisher: Saqi Books
ISBN: 0863569471
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 209
Book Description
In this tense modern literary classic, acclaimed Palestinian author Sahar Khalifeh depicts the humiliation, bitter resignation and determined resistance of Palestinians under Israeli military occupation. First published in 1976, Wild Thorns was the first Arab novel to offer a glimpse of everyday life under Israeli occupation. With uncompromising honesty, Khalifeh pleads elegantly for survival in the face of oppression.
The Optimist
Author: Tamir SorekPublisher: Stanford Studies in Middle Eas
ISBN: 9781503612730
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 256
Book Description
Tawfiq Zayyad (1929-1994) was a renowned Palestinian poet and a committed communist activist. For four decades, he was a dominant figure in political life in Israel, as a local council member, mayor of Nazareth, and member of the Israeli parliament. Zayyad personified the collective struggle of the Palestinian citizens of Israel, challenging the military government following the creation of the state of Israel, leading the 1976 nationwide strike against land confiscation, and tirelessly protesting Israeli military occupation after 1967. With this book, Tamir Sorek offers the first biography of this charismatic figure. Zayyad's life was one of balance and contradiction--between his revolutionary writings as Palestinian patriotic poet and his pragmatic political work in the Israeli public sphere. He was uncompromising in his protest of injustices against the Palestinian people, but always committed to a universalist vision of Arab-Jewish brotherhood. It was this combination of traits that made Zayyad an exceptional leader--and makes his biography larger than the man himself to offer a compelling story about Palestinians and the state of Israel.
The Secret Life of Saeed the Pessoptimist
Author: Émile HabibiPublisher:
ISBN: 9781906697266
Category : Jewish-Arab relations
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
This contemporary classic, the story of a Palestinian who becomes a citizen of Israel, combines fact and fantasy, tragedy and comedy. Saeed is the comic hero. He has all the qualities that typify the hardships and struggles of Arabs in Israel. He is a simple man intent on survival and, perhaps, happiness.
A Mind at Peace
Author: Ahmet Hamdi TanpinarPublisher: Archipelago
ISBN: 1935744194
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 583
Book Description
A “masterpiece . . . one of the 20th century’s notable literary love stories and cultural watersheds”—from Turkey’s most influential writers (Los Angeles Times) A young man comes-of-age in a rapidly-changing Istanbul circa the 1930s, grappling with childhood trauma but finding relief in literature, family, and love “The greatest novel ever written about Istanbul.” —Orhan Pamuk Surviving the childhood trauma of his parents’ untimely deaths in the early skirmishes of World War I, Mümtaz is raised and mentored in Istanbul by his cousin Ihsan and his cosmopolitan family of intellectuals. Having lived through the tumultuous cultural revolutions following the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the rise of the early Turkish Republic, each is challenged by the difficulties brought about by such rapid social change. The promise of modernization and progress has given way to crippling anxiety rather than hope for the future. Fragmentation and destabilization seem the only certainties within the new World where they now find themselves. Mümtaz takes refuge in the fading past, immersing himself in literature and music. But when he falls in love with Nuran, a complex woman with demanding relatives, he is forced to confront the challenges of the World at large. Can their love save them from the turbulent times and protect them from disaster—or will inner obsessions, along with powerful social forces seemingly set against them, tear the couple apart? A Mind at Peace, originally published in 1949 is a magnum opus, a Turkish Ulysses and a lyrical homage to Istanbul. With an innate awareness of how dueling cultural mentalities can lead to the distress of divided selves, Tanpinar gauges this moment in history by masterfully portraying its register on the layered psyches of his Istanbulite characters.
Surrounded
Author: Rhoda Ann KanaanehPublisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804769788
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 224
Book Description
An estimated 3,000 Palestinian citizens of Israel currently volunteer to serve in the Israeli military, a force fighting other Palestinians just miles away in occupied territories. Surrounded takes a close look at this controversial group of soldiers, examining the complex reasons these people join the army and the wider implications of their decisions in terms of security and citizenship. Most observers perceive a clear and powerful divide in the political tensions and open hostilities between the State of Israel and the Palestinian people, but often fail to notice those who straddle this divide—Palestinian citizens of Israel. These soldiers comprise no more than half a percent of this population, but their stories provide a powerful vantage point from which to consider a question faced by all Palestinians in Israel: to what extent are they, in fact, Israeli? Surrounded contains over seventy interviews with soldiers, and provides a unique glimpse of their conflicting experiences of acceptance, integration, and marginalization within the Israeli military. Concluding with comparisons to similar situations around the world, the book upends nationalist understandings of how wars and those who fight in them work. A key to a more complex understanding of ethnic conflict, this gripping and revealing look at a select group of soldiers will immensely alter ideas about the reasons why people choose to fight, particularly on "the wrong side" of a war.
