The Hakawati Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle version is available to download in english. Read online anytime anywhere directly from your device. Click on the download button below to get a free pdf file of The Hakawati book. This book definitely worth reading, it is an incredibly well-written.
In 2003, Osama al-Kharrat returns to Beirut after many years in America to stand vigil at his father's deathbed. As the family gathers, stories begin to unfold: Osama's grandfather was a hakawati, or storyteller, and his bewitching tales are interwoven with classic stories of the Middle East. Here are Abraham and Isaac; Ishmael, father of the Arab tribes; the beautiful Fatima; Baybars, the slave prince who vanquished the Crusaders; and a host of mischievous imps. Through Osama, we also enter the world of the contemporary Lebanese men and women whose stories tell a larger, heartbreaking tale of seemingly endless war, conflicted identity, and survival. With The Hakawati, Rabih Alameddine has given us an Arabian Nights for this century.
Oozing with men, money, and Maseratis, Dubai is the ultimate playground for the woman who knows her Louboutins from her Louis Vuittons. But for some, there’s a lot more at stake than a Hermes Birkin. Leila has been in search of a wealthy husband for over a decade. Nadia moves to Dubai to support her husband’s career, only to have her sacrifices thrown in her face. Sugar escapes the UK in an attempt to escape her past. Lady Luxe, the rebellious Emirati heiress, scoffs at everything her culture holds sacred. Until the day her double life starts unravelling at the seams. Set against a backdrop of luxury hotels and manmade islands, Desperate in Dubai tells the tale of four desperate women as they struggle to find truth, love, and themselves.
A happily misanthropic Middle East divorcee finds refuge in books in a “beautiful and absorbing” novel of late-life crisis (The New York Times). Aaliya is a divorced, childless, and reclusively cranky translator in Beirut nurturing doubts about her latest project: a 900-page avant-garde, linguistically serpentine historiography by a late Chilean existentialist. Honestly, at seventy-two, should she be taking on such a project? Not that Aailiya fears dying. Women in her family live long; her mother is still going crazy. But on this lonely day, hour-by-hour, Aaliya’s musings on literature, philosophy, her career, and her aging body, are suddenly invaded by memories of her volatile past. As she tries in vain to ward off these emotional upwellings, Aaliya is faced with an unthinkable disaster that threatens to shatter the little life she has left. In this “meditation on, among other things, aging, politics, literature, loneliness, grief and resilience” (The New York Times), Alameddine conjures “a beguiling narrator . . . who is, like her city, hard to read, hard to take, hard to know and, ultimately, passionately complex” (San Francisco Chronicle). A finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the National Book Award, An Unnecessary Woman is “a fun, and often funny . . . grave, powerful . . . [and] extraordinary” Washington Independent Review of Books) ode to literature and its power to define who we are. “Read it once, read it twice, read other books for a decade or so, and then pick it up and read it anew. This one’s a keeper” (The Independent)
The Clothesline Swing is a journey through the troublesome aftermath of the Arab Spring. A former Syrian refugee himself, Ramadan unveils an enthralling tale of courage that weaves through the mountains of Syria, the valleys of Lebanon, the encircling seas of Turkey, the heat of Egypt and finally, the hope of a new home in Canada. Inspired by One Thousand and One Nights, The Clothesline Swing tells the epic story of two lovers anchored to the memory of a dying Syria. One is a Hakawati, a storyteller, keeping life in forward motion by relaying remembered fables to his dying partner. Each night he weaves stories of his childhood in Damascus, of the cruelty he has endured for his sexuality, of leaving home, of war, of his fated meeting with his lover. Meanwhile Death himself, in his dark cloak, shares the house with the two men, eavesdropping on their secrets as he awaits their final undoing.
I, The Divine: A Novel in First Chapters by Rabih Alameddine Pdf
One of The Atlantic's Great American Novels Named after the "divine" Sarah Bernhardt, red-haired Sarah Nour El-Din is "wonderful, irresistibly unique, funny, and amazing," raves Amy Tan. Determined to make of her life a work of art, she tries to tell her story, sometimes casting it as a memoir, sometimes a novel, always fascinatingly incomplete. "Alameddine's new novel unfolds like a secret... creating a tale...humorous and heartbreaking and always real" (Los Angeles Times). "[W]ith each new approach, [Sarah] sheds another layer of her pretension, revealing another truth about her humanity" (San Francisco Weekly). Raised in a hybrid family shaped by divorce and remarriage, and by Beirut in wartime, Sarah finds a fragile peace in self-imposed exile in the United States. Her extraordinary dignity is supported by a best friend, a grown-up son, occasional sensual pleasures, and her determination to tell her own story. "Like her narrative, [Sarah's] life is broken and fragmented. [But] the bright, strange, often startling pieces...are moving and memorable" (Boston Globe). Reading group guide included.
“Daring, dazzling . . . A tough, funny, heart-breaking book” by the National Book Award–nominated author of An Unnecessary Woman (The Seattle Times). Detailing the impact of the AIDS epidemic in America and the Lebanese civil war in Beirut on a circle of friends and their families during the 1980s and 1990s, this “absolutely brilliant” novel mines the chaos of contemporary experience, telling the stories of characters who can no longer love or think except in fragments (Amy Tan). Clips and quips, vignettes and hallucinations, tragic news reports and hilarious short plays, conversations with both the quick and the dead, all shine their combined lights to reveal the way we experience life today in the debut novel of the author Michael Chabon calls “one of our most daring writers.” “A provocative, emotionally searing series of connected vignettes . . . For a nonlinear novel the images chosen retain a remarkable cohesion. Often sexually frank or jarringly violent, they merge into a graphic portrait of two cultures torn from the inside.” —Publishers Weekly “[A] refreshing statement of honesty and endurance . . . Funny, brave, full of heart and willing to say things about war and disease, sexual and cultural politics that have rarely been said so boldly or directly before.” —The Oregonian “Rabih Alameddine is one rare writer who not only breaks our hearts but gives every broken piece a new life.” —Yiyun Li
Modern Arab American Fiction by Steven Salaita Pdf
Within the spectrum of American literary traditions, Arab American literature is relatively new. Writing produced by Americans of Arab origin is mainly a product of the twentieth century and only started to flourish in the past thirty years. While this young but thriving literature varies widely in content and style, it emerges from a common community and within a specific historical, political, and cultural context. In Modern Arab American Fiction, Salaita maps out the landscape of this genre as he details rather than defines the last century of Arab American fiction. Exploring the works of such best-selling authors as Rabih Alameddine, Mohja Kahf, Laila Halaby, Diana Abu-Jaber, Alicia Erian, and Randa Jarrar, Salaita highlights the development of each author’s writing and how each has influenced Arab American fiction. He examines common themes including the Israel-Palestine conflict, the Lebanese Civil War of 1975–90, the representation and practice of Islam in the United States, social issues such as gender and national identity in Arab cultures, and the various identities that come with being Arab American. Combining the accessibility of a primer with in-depth critical analysis, Modern Arab American Fiction is suitable for a broad audience, those unfamiliar with the subject area, as well as scholars of the literature.
An American woman determined to learn the Arabic language travels to the Middle East to pursue her dream in this “witty memoir” (Us Weekly). The shadda is the key difference between a pigeon (hamam) and a bathroom (hammam). Be careful, our professor advised, that you don’t ask a waiter, ‘Excuse me, where is the pigeon?’—or, conversely, order a roasted toilet . . . If you’ve ever studied a foreign language, you know what happens when you first truly and clearly communicate with another person. As Zora O’Neill recalls, you feel like a magician. If that foreign language is Arabic, you just might feel like a wizard. They say that Arabic takes seven years to learn and a lifetime to master. O’Neill had put in her time. Steeped in grammar tomes and outdated textbooks, she faced an increasing certainty that she was not only failing to master Arabic, but also driving herself crazy. She took a decade-long hiatus, but couldn’t shake her fascination with the language or the cultures it had opened up to her. So she decided to jump back in—this time with a new approach. In this book, she takes us along on her grand tour through the Middle East, from Egypt to the United Arab Emirates to Lebanon and Morocco. She’s packed her dictionaries, her unsinkable sense of humor, and her talent for making fast friends of strangers. From quiet, bougainvillea-lined streets to the lively buzz of crowded medinas, from families’ homes to local hotspots, she brings a part of the world thousands of miles away right to your door—and reminds us that learning another tongue leaves you rich with so much more than words. “You will travel through countries and across centuries, meeting professors and poets, revolutionaries, nomads, and nerds . . . [A] warm and hilarious book.” —Annia Ciezadlo, author of Day of Honey “Her tale of her ‘Year of Speaking Arabic Badly’ is a genial and revealing pleasure.” —The Seattle Times
The Unexpected Love Objects of Dunya Noor by Rana Haddad Pdf
Aspiring photographer Dunya Noor discovers early on that her curious spirit, rebellious nature, and very curly hair are a recipe for disaster in 1980s Syria. Many years later in London, she meets Hilal, the son of a humble tailor from Aleppo and no match for Dunya, daughter of the great heart surgeon Joseph Noor. But, dreamy, restless Dunya falls in love with Hilal and they decide to return to Syria together, embarking on a journey that will change them both forever. Rana Haddad's vivid and satirical debut novel captures the essence of life under the Assad dictatorship, in all its rigid absurdity.
Political Performance in Syria by Edward Ziter Pdf
Political Performance in Syria, charts the history of a theatre that has sought the expansion of civil society and imagined alternate political realities. In doing so, the manuscript situates the current use of performance and theatre by artists of the Syrian Revolution within a long history of political contestation.
The Wrong End of the Telescope by Rabih Alameddine Pdf
WINNER OF THE 2022 PEN/FAULKNER AWARD FOR FICTION By National Book Award and the National Book Critics' Circle Award finalist for An Unnecessary Woman, Rabih Alameddine, comes a transporting new novel about an Arab American trans woman's journey among Syrian refugees on Lesbos island. Mina Simpson, a Lebanese doctor, arrives at the infamous Moria refugee camp on Lesbos, Greece, after being urgently summoned for help by her friend who runs an NGO there. Alienated from her family except for her beloved brother, Mina has avoided being so close to her homeland for decades. But with a week off work and apart from her wife of thirty years, Mina hopes to accomplish something meaningful, among the abundance of Western volunteers who pose for selfies with beached dinghies and the camp's children. Soon, a boat crosses bringing Sumaiya, a fiercely resolute Syrian matriarch with terminal liver cancer. Determined to protect her children and husband at all costs, Sumaiya refuses to alert her family to her diagnosis. Bonded together by Sumaiya's secret, a deep connection sparks between the two women, and as Mina prepares a course of treatment with the limited resources on hand, she confronts the circumstances of the migrants' displacement, as well as her own constraints in helping them. Not since the inimitable Aaliya of An Unnecessary Woman has Rabih Alameddine conjured such a winsome heroine to lead us to one of the most wrenching conflicts of our time. Cunningly weaving in stories of other refugees into Mina's singular own, The Wrong End of the Telescope is a bedazzling tapestry of both tragic and amusing portraits of indomitable spirits facing a humanitarian crisis.
A rare and beautiful gem of a cookbook, Purple Citrus and Sweet Perfume celebrates the succulent cuisine of the Eastern Mediterranean, a land rich in multi-cultural Ottoman tradition. Popular British chef Silvena Rowe gives us a beautifully designed, lavishly photographed compendium of inspiring and enticing recipes—a treat for the eyes, mind, and heart as well as the palate.
In this companion volume to the successful Images of Enchantment: Visual and Performing Arts of the Middle East (AUC Press, 1998), historian and ethnomusicologist Sherifa Zuhur has once again commissioned and edited authoritative essays from noteworthy scholars from around the globe that explore the visual and performing arts in the Middle East. What differentiates this volume from its predecessor is its investigation of theater, from the early modern period to the contemporary. Topics include race and national identity in Egyptian theater, early writing in the Arab theater in North America, Persian-language theater from its origins through the twentieth century, Palestinian nationalist theater, and a survey of the work of noted Egyptian playwright Yusuf Idris. Other aspects of the arts are not neglected, of course, as further avenues of dance, music, and the visual arts are explored. Marked by interesting and fresh perspectives, Colors of Enchantment is another vital contribution to scholarship on the arts of the Middle East. Contributors: Najwa Adra, Wijdan Ali, Sami Asmar, Clarissa Burt, Michael Frishkopf, M. R. Ghanoonparvar, Tori Haring-Smith, Kathleen Hood, Deborah Kapchan, Neil van der Linden, Samia Mehrez, Mona Mikhail, Sami A. Ofeish, 'Ali Jihad Racy, Rashad Rida, Tonia Rifaey, Edward Said, Lori Anne Salem, Philip D. Schuyler, Selim Sednaoui, Reuven Snir, James Stone, Eve Troutt Powell, and Sherifa Zuhur.
Postcolonial Translocations by Marga Munkelt,Markus Schmitz,Mark Stein,Silke Stroh Pdf
The sites from which postcolonial cultural articulations develop and the sites at which they are received have undergone profound transformations within the last decades. This book traces the accelerating emergence of cultural crossovers and overlaps in a global perspective and through a variety of disciplinary approaches. It starts from the premise that after the ‘spatial turn’ human action and cultural representations can no longer be grasped as firmly located in or clearly demarcated by territorial entities. The collection of essays investigates postcolonial articulations of various genres and media in their spatiality and locatedness while envisaging acts of location as dynamic cultural processes. It explores the ways in which critical spatial thinking can be made Productive: Testing the uses and limitations of ‘translocation’ as an open exploratory model for a critically spatialized postcolonial studies, it covers a wide range of cultural expressions from the anglophone world and beyond – literature, film, TV, photography and other forms of visual art, philosophy, historical memory, and tourism. The extensive introductory chapter charts various facets of spatial thinking from a variety of disciplines, and critically discusses their implications for postcolonial studies. The Contributors’ essays range from theoretical interventions into the critical routines of postcolonial criticism to case studies of specific cultural texts, objects, and events reflecting temporal and spatial, material and intellectual, physical and spiritual mobility. What emerges is a fascinating survey of the multiple directions postcolonial translocations can take in the future. This book is aimed at students and scholars of postcolonial literary and cultural studies, diaspora studies, migration studies, transnational studies, globalisation studies, critical space studies, urban studies, film studies, media studies, art history, philosophy, history, and anthropology. Contributors: Diana Brydon, Lars Eckstein, Paloma Fresno-Calleja, Lucia Krämer, Gesa Mackenthun, Thomas Martinek, Sandra Meyer, Therese-M. Meyer, Marga Munkelt, Lynda Ng, Claudia Perner, Katharina Rennhak, Gundo Rial y Costas, Markus Schmitz, Mark Stein, Silke Stroh, Kathy-Ann Tan, Petra Tournay-Theodotou, Daria Tunca, Jessica Voges, Roland Walter, Dirk Wiemann.
Charles Corm: An Intellectual Biography of a Twentieth-Century Lebanese “Young Phoenician” delves into the history of the modern Middle East and an inquiry into Lebanese intellectual, cultural, and political life as incarnated in the ideas, and as illustrated by the times, works, and activities of Charles Corm (1894–1963). Charles Corm was a guiding spirit behind modern Lebanese nationalism, a leading figure in the “Young Phoenicians” movement, and an advocate for identity narratives that are often dismissed in the prevalent Arab nationalist paradigms that have come to define the canon of Middle East history, political thought, and scholarship of the past century. But Charles Corm was much more than a man of letters upholding a specific patriotic mission. As a poet and entrepreneur, socialite and orator, philanthropist and patron of the arts, and as a leading businessman, Charles Corm commanded immense influence on modern Lebanese political and social life, popular culture, and intellectual production during the interwar period and beyond. In many respects, Charles Corm has also been “the conscience” of Lebanese society at a crucial juncture in its modern history, as the autonomous sanjak/Mutasarrifiyya (or Province) of Mount-Lebanon and the Vilayet (State) of Beirut of the late nineteenth century were navigating their way out of Ottoman domination and into a French Mandatory period (ca. 1918), before culminating with the independence of the Republic of Lebanon in 1943.
