In January 2017, President Trump signed an executive order banning people from seven Muslim-majority countries – Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen – from entering the United States, effectively slamming the door on refugees seeking safety and tearing families apart. Mass protests followed, and although the order has since been blocked, amended and challenged by judges, it still stands as one of the most discriminatory laws to be passed in the US in modern times. Banthology...

Thirty Shadow Birds speaks poignantly of the sweetness and bitterness found in every newcomer's journey to a new homeland."-Nasreen Pejvack, author of Amity and Paradise of the DowncastsTo pursue her dream of building a life free from violence for her son and herself, Yalda flees from her nightmarish past as well as her troubled homeland, Iran. But in her new haven, she realizes that nightmares haunt not only her past, but also her present and fut...

In January 2017, President Trump signed an executive order banning people from seven Muslim-majority countries – Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen – from entering the United States, effectively slamming the door on refugees seeking safety and tearing families apart. Mass protests followed, and although the order has since been blocked, amended and challenged by judges, it still stands as one of the most discriminatory laws to be passed in the US in modern times.Ban...

'A fascinating account of life as Bedouin in the late twentieth century' Mary S. Lovell'This sparkling memoir is a refreshing antidote and a rare window into the legendary hospitality and mysterious customs of the Bedouin Arabs' Publishing News'"Where you staying?" the Bedouin asked. "Why you not stay with me tonight - in my cave?"'Thus begins Marguerite van Geldermalsen's story of how a New Zealand-born nurse came...

Nazanin Afshin-Jam was on top of the world. In 2006, she had just signed her first record deal and, after placing as first runner-up for Miss World, was a sought-after fashion model and icon within the Iranian dissident community. But one afternoon, she received an email that would change the course of her life. The subject of that email—a Kurdish girl named Nazanin Fatehi—was facing execution in Iran, as punishment for stabbing a man who had tried to rape her. Afshin-Jam quickly came to F...

"Wonderful . . . One of the finest memoirs I've read." — Philip Caputo, Washington PostIn the summer of 2006, racing through Lebanon to report on the Israeli invasion, Anthony Shadid found himself in his family's ancestral hometown of Marjayoun. There, he discovered his great-grandfather's once magnificent estate in near ruins, devastated by war. One year later, Shadid returned to Marjayoun, not to chronicle the violence, but to rebuild in its wake.So begins the stor...

An emotional, evocative coming-of-age story about one deeply intelligent and perceptive girl’s attempt to find her own voice in prerevolutionary Iran“An immensely moving, extraordinarily eloquent, and passionate memoir.”—Harold BloomRoya Hakakian was twelve years old in 1979 when the revolution swept through Tehran. The daughter of an esteemed poet, she grew up in a household that hummed with intellectual life. Family gatherings were punctu...

Ibn Battutah set out in 1325 from his native Tangier on the pilgrimage to Mecca. By the time he returned twenty-nine years later, he had visited most of the known world, travelling three times the distance Marco Polo covered. Spiritual backpacker, social climber, temporary hermit and failed ambassador, he braved brigands, blisters and his own prejudices. The outcome was a monumental travel classic.Captivated by this indefatigable man, award-winning travel writer Tim Mackintosh-Smit...

" The City Always Wins powerfully transmits the hope and despair of Egypt's Tahrir Square generation . . . one of the defining novels of the Arab Spring." —Toby Lichtig, The Wall Street JournalNamed as one of the Best Books of 2017 by The Boston Globe and The Arts DeskWe've been doing the same thing for hundreds of years. Marching, fighting, chanting, dying, changing, winning, losing. This time will be different. Th...

Do Gazans ever have fun? Is the Strip beautiful? And do TV reports actually reflect ordinary life inside the world's largest 'open-air prison'? From beautiful beaches to sealed borders, from a secret New Year's Eve party to a lingerie market staffed entirely by men, award-winning writer Louisa Waugh paints an intimate picture of Gaza, revealing the pleasures and pains, hopes and frustrations of Gazans going about their daily lives. Meet Me in Gaza is an evocative portrait of a Mediterranea...

Iraq + 100 poses a question to ten Iraqi writers: what might your country look like in the year 2103 – a century after the disastrous American- and British-led invasion, and 87 years down the line from its current, nightmarish battle for survival? How might the effects of that one intervention reach across a century of repercussions, and shape the lives of ordinary Iraqi citizens, or influence its economy, culture, or politics? Might Iraq have finally escaped the cycle of invasion...

From 'Morocco's greatest living author' (The Guardian) comes a heartbreaking novel about parents and children, the powerful pull of home and the yearning for tradition and family. Mohammed has spent the past 40 years working in France. As he approaches retirement, he takes stock of his life - his devotion to Islam and to his assimilated children - and decides to return to Morocco, where he spends his life's savings building the biggest house in the village and waiting for his children and ...