"This is your last day. Be strong. Don't hesitate. Cut and run. An exit with no return." Idris Alis confessional novel opens with these words, spoken on an unbearably hot August afternoon in downtown Cairo, where the Nubian narrator has just decided, once and for all, to end his life. Delirious and thirsty, he wanders around venting his resentments large and small, his sexual frustrations, and his sense of powerlessness in the face of unremitting injustice. He seeks to expunge his failed l...

“I’m a simple village girl who has always obeyed the orders of my father and brothers. Since forever, I have learned to say yes to everything. Today I have decided to say no.”Nujood Ali's childhood came to an abrupt end in 2008 when her father arranged for her to be married to a man three times her age. With harrowing directness, Nujood tells of abuse at her husband's hands and of her daring escape. With the help of local advocates and the press, Nujood obtained he...

Does one honor one’s country or one’s heart? Malka Marom explores this classic dilemma in her stunningly powerful first novel, an extraordinary tale of people caught up in a violent and seemingly endless historical conflict, compelled by love and grief to transcend it.Sulha tells the story of Leora, who, twenty years after her husband was killed in the Sinai War, is empowered by law to decide whether or not to allow her only son to serve high-risk duty as his father did. As Abraham...

Soon to be a major motion picture starring Adrien Brody and Salma HayekIn the aftermath of the Iranian revolution, rare-gem dealer Isaac Amin is arrested, wrongly accused of being a spy. Terrified by his disappearance, his family must reconcile a new world of cruelty and chaos with the collapse of everything they have known. As Isaac navigates the terrors of prison, and his wife feverishly searches for him, his children struggle with the realization that th...

When Arcade Publishing originally contracted this extraordinary collection of poetry and literature, the Department of the Treasury was attempting to censor the publication of works from countries on America’s “enemies list.” Arcade, along with the PEN American Center, the Association of American Publishers Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division, and the Association of American University Presses, filed a lawsuit in federal court against the United States government. Their landmark...

Latifa was born into an educated middle-class Afghan family in Kabul in 1980. She dreamed of one day of becoming a journalist, she was interested in fashion, movies and friends. Her father was in the import/export business and her mother was a doctor.Then in September 1996, Taliban soldiers seized power in Kabul. From that moment, Latifa, just 16 years old became a prisoner in her own home. Her school was closed. Her mother was banned from working. The simplest and most basic freedo...

An international bestseller and finalist for the Prix Goncourt, France’s most prestigious literary award, The Age of Reinvention is a "suspenseful...Gatsby-esque odyssey...laced with provocative observations of prejudice, politics, and sexism" (Publishers Weekly, starred review).Top Manhattan criminal defense attorney Sam Tahar seems to have it all: fame, fortune, an enviable marriage to a prominent socialite, and two wonderful children. But his s...

The Hugo Award–winning author returns to the futuristic, high-tech Middle East setting of When Gravity Falls in this "major science fiction epic" ( Locus).In a world filled with so many puppets, strings tend to get tangled. In this follow-up to the groundbreaking cyberpunk novel When Gravity Fails, the Budayeen is still a very dangerous place, a high-tech Arabian ghetto where power and murder go hand in hand.Marid Audran used to be ...

A gay man in the Middle East wrestles with identity, love, and the upheaval of his country in this “vibrant, wrenching debut novel” (New Yorker).“. . .challenges the notion of what a ‘conventional’ love story should look like . . . As one of few queer novels with an Arab protagonist, it should not be overlooked.” —Lambda LiterarySet over the course of 24 four hours, Guapa follows Rasa, a gay man living in an unnam...

It is 1957, and Amal is an inmate of the “Bethlehem Oasis for Troubled Women,” having feigned insanity to avoid being put to death for the murder of her abusive husband. When attacked by a fellow inmate, Amal must confront her traumatic memories.

Savushun chronicles the life of a Persian family during the Allied occupation of Iran during World War II. It is set in Shiraz, a town which evokes images of Persepolis and pre-Islamic monuments, the great poets, the shrines, Sufis, and nomadic tribes within a historical web of the interests, privilege and influence of foreign powers; corruption, incompetence and arrogance of persons in authority; the paternalistic landowner-peasant relationship; tribalism; and the fear of famine. The stor...

FOUR STARRED REVIEWS! A Stone in My Hand is the haunting story of a sensitive, observant girl who finds her voice in 1988 Gaza City. (Age 11 and up)The year is 1988 in Gaza City, and it has been a month since eleven-year-old Malaak’s father left to seek work in Israel, only to disappear. Every day Malaak climbs to the roof and waits, speaking little to anyone, preferring the company of the little bird she has tamed. But he...