The first two essays in Poets from a War Torn World are about mysticism in modern Arabic poetry. The second two essays are about literary philosophy in modern Hebrew poetry. All four essays focus on the 1960s and 1970s, a time when poets hoped that through their writings they could help bring peace to a war torn Middle East.-----Reuven Snirs introduction is in clear simple language. It provides background knowledge that will assist the general reader who has no previous knowledge of specif...

The book On Screenwriting and Love and Politics: The Screenplay “Blue Mist,” is written in an engaging literary style. It attempts to illuminate the emotions, theories, and process that go into crafting a screenplay.----As a special appendix, the book includes the authors latest full-length screenplay Blue Mist. About this screenplay, Aviva says: “I write about love and politics. My screenplays are theatrical feature films on Middle Eastern subjects. This time with my screenplay Blue Mist,...

Gifts from an Empty Suitcase and Other Short Stories: And Twenty Poems presents an array of stories and poetry about people in our turbulent, modern world that encompasses both East and West. It is a world filled with tragedy and a growing refugee population.----The fate of birds is also interwoven within these tales of human joy and sadness.----These fascinating stories are truly Gifts, and are set in Egypt, Afghanistan, Michigan and Australia. The poems often complement the stories, with...

Previously unavailable in English, Salim Barakat’s Sages of Darkness depicts Kurdish life in the period of transition from a traditional tribal existence to half-hearted modernization under the Ottomans. A saga of the lives and deaths of two Kurdish chieftains and their families, it is filled with fantasy, humor and wonder as well as tragedy and devotion to the futile, and delves into the intertwined workings of history, mythology and memory. It is a landmark of Kurdish literature...

A shocking, riveting, intriguing re-discovery of history, culture, philosophy and the emerging of a key individual that became the instrument to catapult the Islamic religion. The impact of ancient Arabian folklore with its stone and astral cults, shamanism, various Judaic traditions, heretical sects within Christianity, and prevalent moon-god veneration, all rolled together in the mind of Muhammad, who carved out a kind of salad religion, taking bits and pieces and countering with his own...

From world-renowned public intellectual Bernard-Henri Lévy comes an incisive and provocative look at the heart of Judaism.“A smart, revealing, and essential book for our times.”—The Washington PostFor more than four decades, Bernard-Henri Lévy has been a singular figure on the world stage—one of the great moral voices of our time. Now Europe's foremost philosopher and activist confronts his spiritual roots and the religion that has...

Mohammed's life is an epic story. He was an orphan who rose from poverty to become the first ruler of all of Arabia. He created a new religion, new methods of war and a new political system including a legal code, the Sharia. Mohammed was the world's greatest warrior. Today no one wages war in the name of Caesar, Alexander the Great, Napoleon or any other military leader. However, every year many people die because of Mohammed. After 1400 years, Islam is more powerful than it has ever been...

Prize-winning author Michael J. Totten returns with a masterpiece of travel writing and history in this journey through thirteen nations—all but two formerly communist—just beyond the edge of the West where few casual travelers venture. His work as an independent foreign correspondent takes him deep into the field beyond the sensational headlines, from his hilariously miserable road trip through the Middle East with his best friend to Iraq, and around Eastern Europe to the Wild West of Alb...

The Koran has constituted a remarkably strong core of identity and continuity for a religious tradition that is now in its fifteenth century. This Very Short Introduction explores the significance of the Koran both in the modern world and in traditional Muslim culture. Michael Cook provides a lucid and direct account of the Koran as codex, as scripture, as liturgy, and as the embodiment of truth, and examines its means of formation and dissemination. He also discusses issues of interpretat...

A snapshot of Israel and the West Bank in the 1980s, through the voices of its inhabitants, from the National Jewish Book Award–winning author of Judas.Notebook in hand, renowned author and onetime kibbutznik Amos Oz traveled throughout his homeland to talk with people—workers, soldiers, religious zealots, aging pioneers, desperate Arabs, visionaries—asking them questions about Israel's past, present, and future. Observant or secular, rich or poor, native-...

Miljenko Jergovic’s remarkable début collection of stories, Sarajevo Marlboro – winner of the Erich Maria Remarque Peace Prize – earned him wide acclaim throughout Europe. Croatian by birth, Jergovic ? spent his childhood in Sarajevo and chose to remain there throughout most of the war. A dazzling storyteller, he brings a profoundly human, razor-sharp understanding of the fate of the city’s young Muslims, Croats, and Serbs with a subterranean humor and profoundly personal vision. Their off...

“Heartbreakingly inspirational.” (AsianWeek)Ma Yan's heart-wrenching, honest diary chronicles her struggle to escape hardship through her persistent, sometimes desperate, attempts to continue her schooling.In a drought-stricken corner of rural China, an education can be the difference between a life of crushing poverty and the chance for a better future. But for Ma Yan, money is scarce, and the low wages paid for backbreaking work aren't always enough to pay school fees, or...