Ferial Ghazoul

Alif 36

$89.95

Friendship, though esteemed, has not been central in critical studies. It has been overshadowed by other bonding relationships. However, it figures as a privileged theme in classical, medieval, renaissance, and modern philosophy. More recently, sociological, anthropological, and psychological studies have explored the varied dimensions of friendship. Different cultures view friendship in various perspectives that intersect, contrast, and echo each other. In Middle Eastern, East Asian, European, and American thought, philosophers, jurists, and creative writers have explored the idea of friendship and their input is analyzed in this issue. Alif 36 foregrounds different ways of presenting friendship in diverse cultures and historical periods.

Kaya Genç

An Istanbul Anthology

$19.95

For centuries following its reestablishment as Constantinople in AD 330, Istanbul served as the capital of three great empires: Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman. The city’s maze-like streets and high balconies, its steep alleys, flower gardens, and forested hillsides remain soaked in the vestiges of that imperial past, and it is to that past and to Istanbul’s unearthly moods and waters that so many writers and diarists journeyed in search of escape, knowledge, happiness, or sheer wonderment. An Istanbul Anthology takes us on a nostalgic journey through the city with travelers’ accounts of the sights, smells, and sounds of Istanbul’s bazaars and coffeehouses, its grand palaces and gardens, crumbling buildings, and ancient churches and mosques, and the waters that so haunt and define it. With writers such as Gustave Flaubert, Pierre Loti, Ernest Hemingway, Mark Twain, and André Gide, we discover and rediscover the many delights of this great city of antiquity, meeting point of East and West, and gateway to peoples and civilizations. About the series: The elegant, pocket-sized volumes in the AUC Press Anthology series feature the writings and observations of travel writers and diarists through the centuries. Vivid and evocative travelers’ accounts of some of the world’s great cities and regions are enhanced by the exquisite vintage design in small hardback format that make the books ideal gift books as well as perfect travel companions. Designed on cream paper stock and beautifully illustrated with line drawings and archival photographs.

Ferial Ghazoul

Alif 33

$89.95

This interdisciplinary issue of the literary journal Alif is devoted to the desert—as a geographical locus and symbolic image—and to various texts related to it, drawn from literature and the arts, history and anthropology, film and environmental studies. Scholars from the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and North America contribute articles in Arabic, English, and French related to the visual representation of the desert in medieval iconography and in contemporary cinema, in American poetry and in pre-Islamic poetics, in human geography and in sociological thought, in French novels and in Arabic novels, in religious traditions and in ecological approaches, in travel literature and in critical discourse. Includes contributions by Saeed Alwakeel, Saad El Bazei, Sharif Elmusa, Jehan Farouk, Naglaa Hassan, Abdullah Ibrahim, Salma Mobarak, Senayon Olaoluwa, Yasmine Ramadan, Nathalie Roman, Randa Sabry.

Ferial Ghazoul

Alif 30

$89.95

This issue of Alif focuses on trauma and loss and their presence in collective and individual memory. The question of traumatic events has been recognized in psychology, psychoanalysis, and literature, but scholarly studies have mostly concentrated on traumas enacted in the West—World Wars and the Holocaust. Contributors to this volume attempt to extend the field of trauma and memory studies to include other parts of the world: Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, India, Ireland, Lebanon, Palestine, Pakistan, multi-ethnic America, and ancient Greece. The Lebanese civil war or the Peloponnesian war, the Nakba of 1948 or the Naksa of 1967: the articles and personal testimonies in this issue explore the impact of such tragic events on literary genre, films, fiction, folk culture, poetry, drama, and visual arts. Alif: Journal of Comperative Poetics 30 Contributors: Nasr Hamid Abu-Zayd, Galal Amin, Gaber Asfour, Mohammed Berrada, Céza Kassem-Draz, Sabry Hafez, Barbara Harlow, Malak Hashem, Wolfhart Heinrichs, Richard Jacquemond, Andrew Rubin, Doris Enright-Clark Shoukri, and Hoda Wasfi.

Michael Haag

An Alexandria Anthology

$19.95

Founded by Alexander the Great over 2,300 years ago, Alexandria has belonged both to the Mediterranean and to Egypt, a luxuriant out-planting of Europe on the coast of Africa, but also a city of the East—the fabled cosmopolitan town that fascinated travelers, writers, and poets in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, where French and Arabic, Italian and Greek were spoken in the cafés and on the streets. In the pages of An Alexandria Anthology, we follow the delight of travelers discovering the strangeness of the city and its variety and pleasures. Most of all they are haunted by the city’s resplendent past—the famous Library, the temple built by Cleopatra for Antony, the great Pharos lighthouse, one of the seven wonders of the world, of which only traces remain—we follow our travelers here too as they voyage through an immense ghost city of the imagination. About the series: The elegant, pocket-sized volumes in the AUC Press Anthology series feature the writings and observations of travel writers and diarists through the centuries. Vivid and evocative travelers’ accounts of some of the world’s great cities and regions are enhanced by the exquisite vintage design in small hardback format that make the books ideal gift books as well as perfect travel companions. Designed on cream paper stock and beautifully illustrated with line drawings and archival photographs.

Waheed Samy

al-Kitaba wa-l-uslub

$16.95

This book approaches its subject of Arabic writing and composition by looking at the discrete entities, including vocabulary, grammar, and transformations, which together comprise style. Assuming that different areas of writing require different styles, it presents examples of such areas (expressing time, instructions, physical descriptions, and so on), and for each example the relevant stylistic elements—vocabulary, grammar, and transformations—are outlined. The book, entirely in Arabic, is clear and logical, and is aimed at intermediate to advanced levels, although, with the assistance of a teacher, students at elementary levels will also find much of interest.

Andrew Rubin

Alif 34

$89.95

As one of the first non-European journals to critically address the category of Weltliteratur bilingually from the perspective of the Global South, this special issue of Alif addresses this problem theoretically and empirically. The critical conversation about the problem of the category of Weltliteratur is not only extended beyond the European and North American sphere that has largely dominated and framed the discussion of Weltliteratur, but is juxtaposed formally in a way that permits us to understand that there are other “world literatures” that allow us to reexamine the contending theories, practices, and underlying assumptions of Weltliteratur. Essays in this volume emphasize in different ways the inherent tension between postcolonial studies and “world criticism,” and to that extent open up new realms for the discovery of new knowledges, new epistemes, modes of conversation, and communication.

Ferial Ghazoul

Alif 32

$89.95

This issue of Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics is devoted to the intersection of the imaginary and the documentary, the fictional and the cultural in the three genres of literature (poetry, fiction, and drama), in history, in film (feature and documentary), in photography, in plastic arts, and in architecture. Collage in art, portrait paintings, political poetry, archival footage in films, the historical novel, and the metaphors of historiography are some of the examples that demonstrate the interfacing between the imaginary and the documentary. Subjectivity and ideology of the artist and scholar might be couched in a flight of fantasy or in a rational argument, but in both cases they are joined to a specific worldview that is analyzed and discussed. Contributors: Abdel Rahman El Abnoudy, Emad Abdel Latif, Saeed Alwakil, Tamim El Barghouti, Judith Butler, Safaa Fathy, Tahany El Gebaly, Ahmed Haddad, Sabry Hafez, Chouaib Halifi, Stuart Hall, Barbara Harlow, Ahmed Heakl, Jeffrey Herlihy, Ahmed Abdel Mo‘ty Higazi, Abdullah Ibrahim, Walid El Khachab, Jalal Uddin Khan, Hasna Lebbady, Iman Mersal, Helmi Salem, Stephanie Schwerter, Basheer El Sibaei, Larbi Touaf, John Carlos Rowe, Angela Vaupel, Elizabeth Wickett, Shaaban Yusuf.

Ferial Ghazoul

Alif 27

$89.95

This issue of Alif is published on the centennial anniversary of the founding the first Casa dei Bambini, a progressive educational institution for children, which seeks an alternative mode in bringing them up and nurturing their independence. An extract from the writings of the pedagogue of this innovative method, Maria Montessori, is here translated into Arabic for the first time. This collection covers the universe of children through interviews, photo-essays, testimonies, and articles in psychology, philosophy, law, music, fiction, media, poetry, and drama, addressing varied aspects of childhood: from Shakespeare for children to puppet theater in Egypt; from plays for dispossessed camp children to children enlisted in militias; from the affluent and leisurely childhood of Virginia Woolf to the wonders of the early years of a poet like Muhammad Afifi Matar. Essays also explore heroism and ethical values in children’s literature, as well as musical adaptations of children’s literature and the art and craft of making books for children. Alif Volume 27 Contributors: Abdelfattah Abusrour, Saeed Alwakeel, Nasseif Azmy, Mia Carter, Sharif S. Elmusa, Adib Fattal, Stephannie S. Gearhart, Ferial J. Ghazoul, Amanie Fawzi Habashi, Gala El Hadidi, Thomas Hartwell, Sayyid Hegab, Nadia El Kholy, Mohieddin al-Labbad, Muhammad Afifi Matar, Tanya M. Monforte, Maria Montessori, Yasmine Motawy, Naomi Shihab Nye, Michal Oklot, Mounira Soliman, Wiam El-Tamami, Matthew Whoolery.

Ferial Ghazoul

Alif 28

$89.95

This issue of Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics addresses literary and artistic adaptations comprehensively. It offers articles on adaptations and appropriations of textual and visual material, focusing on adapting works from one genre to another, from one discourse to another, and from one medium to another. Transformation, modification, and ‘writing back’ in the process of adaptation are analyzed and contextualized. The volume covers adaptation of, among other things, novels into films, sacred texts into literary works, rituals into installation art, historical documents into narrative texts, art objects into poetic discourse, folk legends into dramatic works, ideological positions into fables, erotic verses into Sufi lessons, and e-mails and personal diaries into performances. The contributors are from Africa, America, Asia, and Europe. Between them they cover postcolonial adaptations, gendered appropriations, and literary rewriting of the past, as well as theoretical and esthetic dimensions of such artistic adaptations. Examples are given from Egyptian, Iraqi, Kuwaiti, Pakistani, American, British, Andalusian, and sub-Saharan African works. There are also translations related to the topic of adaptation, and testimonies by writers who have adapted works across genres. Alif 28.

Ferial Ghazoul

Alif 26

$89.95

This issue of Alif is devoted to travel and travel-writing in the broadest cross-cultural sense and focuses on what Mahmoud Manzalauoui has termed indigenes, visitants, sojourners, and habitants or metics, particularly in Egypt and the Middle East. It is a tribute to Middle East scholar and acclaimed travel writer John Rodenbeck. Essays in this issue take a variety of approaches, ranging from the historical to the analytical and philosophical. Contributors include Sahar Sobhi Abdel-Hakim, Fadwa Adbel Rahman, Michael Haag, JDF Jones, Ceza Kassem, Nabil Matar, Malise Ruthven, Sarah Searight, and Terry Walz.

Deborah Manley

A Nile Anthology

$19.95

The stretch of the longest river in the world that nurtured the world’s first great civilization has drawn and impressed visitors since ancient times. The Greeks were fascinated by the mysterious annual flood of the Nile that brought both water and nourishing silt to the lands along its banks, while nineteenth-century travelers were amazed by the magnificent tombs and temples of Upper Egypt. A Nile Anthology brings together the accounts and reflections of visitors and travelers to the Nile between Luxor and Aswan through the ages, from Herodotus in the fifth century BC, and the Arab geographers of medieval times, to such nineteenth-century luminaries as Amelia Edwards, Florence Nightingale, Jean François Champollion, Edward Lane, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. From the practicalities of river travel to descriptions of the pharaonic monuments, via the sights, sounds, and smells of the teeming souks, our writers guide us through a world and an age long gone. About the series: The elegant, pocket-sized volumes in the AUC Press Anthology series feature the writings and observations of travel writers and diarists through the centuries. Vivid and evocative travelers’ accounts of some of the world’s great cities and regions are enhanced by the exquisite vintage design in small hardback format that make the books ideal gift books as well as perfect travel companions. Designed on cream paper stock and beautifully illustrated with line drawings and archival photographs.

Shahab Ahmed

Alif 23

$89.95

Studies in this collection treat varied aspects of the relationship between literary discourses and ideas of the sacred in different cultures and epochs. Contributions by established and emerging scholars from the Arab world, South Asia, Europe, and North America examine issues such as the treatment of the sacred in literary texts and traditions, the literary dimensions of sacred texts, the impact of the sacred on literary imagination, the role of the literary in sacred experience, and the contestations between the respective projects of literature and the sacred over the constitution of cultural and social norms. Alif vol. 23 Contributors: English and French sections: Nasr Abu Zaid, Karen Campbell, Angelica DeAngelis, Markus Dressler, Michael Frishkopf, Scott Kugle, Heba Machhour, Olivier Sécardin, Marla Segol. Arabic section: Farid Abu Si’da, Boutros Hallaq, Ahmed Taher Hassanein, Anwar Ibrahim, Richard Jacquemond, Salah Kamel, Ali Mabrook, Sa’id Tawfiq.

Laila Al-Sawi

al-Murshid

$34.50

This grammar book is intended for intermediate learners of Modern Standard Arabic. It covers the main points that they need to master at this level to prepare them for the next level of proficiency. Each lesson in the book begins with a brief statement and explanation of a grammar rule followed by different types of exercises. The exercise section of the lessons begins with mechanical drills (some of which have illustrations) for practice of the grammar point of the lesson. At the end, there are writing exercises that enable learners to produce the language freely while still requiring them to use the lesson’s grammar. The book is accompanied by a CD with animated PowerPoint presentations illustrating the grammar rules explained in the lessons, and interactive drills. This very practical textbook provides a fine, flexible tool for a grammar-based approach to teaching MSA.

Abdellatif Abid et al.

al-Kitab al-asasi

$39.50

This three-part course in Modern Standard Arabic for non-native speakers approaches the language through a series of themed topics—daily life in the Arab world, politics and governance, literature and the arts, science and medicine, astronomy—concentrates principally on listening and speaking skills. In each section, vocabulary is built up as various linguistic structures and strategies are introduced and practiced in a clear introduction to Arabic grammar. A CD accompanies Volume 1, and a supplementary dictionary, al-Mu‘jam al-musa‘id, gives a complete key to the vocabulary of all three books in four languages: English, French, German, and Spanish. Comprehensive and easily digestible, varied and informative, these books make an ideal basis for a classroom-based course in Arabic anywhere in the world.

Jenny Jobbins

Alexandria and the Egyptian Mediterranean

$22.95

The Mediterranean coast of Egypt stretches for 1,000 kilometers from Sallum in the west to Rafah in the east, exhibiting a variety of littoral landscapes—rocky shores and white sand beaches where the Western Desert meets the sea, low-lying wetlands along the edge of the Nile Delta, and rolling dunes in northern Sinai. Along the way are Egypt’s second city, Alexandria, the battlefield of al-Alamein, and the historic town of Rashid. With this new fully revised edition of their popular guide, Jenny Jobbins and Mary Megalli traverse the entire coast, guiding the curious visitor on what to see and what to know, where to swim and where to stay, how to get there and how to get around. The guide is an informative companion for all travelers, whether their interest lies in sightseeing or nostalgia-seeking, archaeology or birdwatching. It offers information on recent excavations, submerged antiquities, places of interest, museums, hotels, and restaurants, as well as a comprehensive history of the coastal region and facts about its geography, wildlife, and natural environment. Detailed route and travel information are included for motorists, as are listings of bus, rail, and air services. Illustrated with detailed maps and 30 color photographs—and now revised with the most up-to-date information and practical advice—this convenient guidebook is an ideal companion for anyone traveling to this multifaceted region of Egypt.

Alexandria and the Egyptian Mediterranean

Manfred Woidich

al-Kitab al-mufid

$39.50

A new coursebook in modern standard Arabic from the authors of kullu tamam!

This sequel to the well-known kullu tamam!, on Egyptian Arabic, by the same authors, focuses on the modern written language used in real life by providing short texts taken from Egyptian newspapers, official statements, and the internet, and introduces personal and business letters, some of them in handwritten form (ruq‘a). For those who have studied kullu tamam!, the first lessons give contrastive word lists and exercises to make the link with Egyptian Colloquial Arabic. Extensive pattern drills, translation exercises in both directions, and writing exercises aid understanding and encourage active use of the language. The key to the exercises, the Arabic –English / English –Arabic glossary, and the audio material containing the texts allow for classroom use as well as for self-study.

Farid Kioumgi

A Photographer on the Hajj

$34.95

The diaries of Muhammad ‘Ali Effendi Sa‘udi, a civil servant and accomplished photographer, offer a rare glimpse of the Hajj through Egyptian eyes at the beginning of the twentieth century when the Ottoman Empire was on the wane and the advance of the Hijaz railway threatened to upset vested interests in the old pattern of pilgrimage.
Sa‘udi twice accompanied the Amir al-Hajj, Ibrahim Rif‘at Pasha, attached to the official Egyptian caravan. His story of these journeys combines the thoughts of a devout Muslim with fine detail on the hardships and health hazards facing pilgrims, the high-level intrigues, and the ever-present dangers of taking photographs.
The authors have compressed the diaries into a highly readable narrative with selected quotations, lavishly illustrated with Sa‘udi’s remarkable photographs.

Kamal Al Ekhnawy

‘Arabi Liblib

$29.95

While most courses in Egyptian Arabic teach the essentials of syntax, morphology, and vocabulary, this resource book takes the student a step beyond. Intended for the advanced learner of Egyptian Colloquial Arabic who has mastered the basics, this third in a series of three books (following Volume 1, Adjectives and Descriptions, and Volume 2, Proverbs) focuses on colorful expressions used by native speakers. The learner will advance from knowing how to form a good sentence to being able to express his or her thoughts about the ups and downs of daily life using culturally appropriate expressions. Definitions (including connotation) and explanations are given in Egyptian Colloquial Arabic, and expressions taught in the book are used in many of the definitions, thus providing further reinforcement. Organized as a reference work, the book can also be used as a textbook, as it contains exercises.

Habib Ayeb

Agrarian Transformation in the Arab World: Persistent and Emerging Challenges

$29.95

This collection of essays revisits agrarian transformation in Arab countries in the light of new realities and emerging challenges. Apart from the urgency of the deepening food crisis, such realities include environmental challenges, changes in consumption and life-style choices, and a new set of rules governing the conditions of access to resources. The issue investigates the commonality and diversity in the current processes of agrarian transformation, based on empirical case studies from different Arab countries.

Agrarian Transformation in the Arab World: Persistent and Emerging Challenges

Kamal Al Ekhnawy

‘Arabi Liblib

$29.95

While most courses in Egyptian Arabic teach the essentials of syntax, morphology, and vocabulary, this first in a series of three books takes the student a step beyond and focuses on colorful expressions used by native speakers. The learner will advance from knowing how to form a good sentence to being able to express his or her thoughts about the ups and downs of daily life using culturally appropriate phrases. This first volume, Adjectives and Descriptions, focuses on the many expressions used to describe people, their characteristics, their behaviors, and their attitudes. Each entry is given fully voweled followed by its feminine form and plural, and definitions (including connotation) and explanations are given in Egyptian Colloquial Arabic. Organized as a reference work, the book can also be used as a textbook, as it contains a large number of exercises. Volume 2, forthcoming, will focus on proverbs and Volume 3, forthcoming, on idiomatic expressions.

T.J. Gorton

A Beirut Anthology

$19.95

Beirut has seen many armies and empires come and go, but the legacy of this long history is not so much in surviving monuments as in the quintessential Levantine spirit of the people. A commercial hub since the days of the Phoenicians, it was a center of learning under the Romans, its law school pre-eminent in the Empire. Both currents are discernible today, with vibrant Arab, French, and American universities and more publishing houses than the rest of the Arab world coexisting with the most dynamic financial center in the Middle East. Beirut was the point of entry to the Levant for many Europeans and Americans undertaking a Grand Tour or a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and visitors (whether their focus was piously Biblical or more prosaic) recorded their impressions of this effervescent port city where East rubs against West. A Beirut Anthology gathers the choicest of these, from writers as diverse as Alphonse de Lamartine and Mark Twain, providing a surprising and vivid glimpse behind the veil of this elusive and alluring city. About the series: The elegant, pocket-sized volumes in the AUC Press Anthology series feature the writings and observations of travel writers and diarists through the centuries. Vivid and evocative travelers’ accounts of some of the world’s great cities and regions are enhanced by the exquisite vintage design in small hardback format that make the books ideal gift books as well as perfect travel companions. Designed on cream paper stock and beautifully illustrated with line drawings and archival photographs.

Leena Pekkalainen

Mummies, Monsters, and the Ship of Millions

$19.95

Another hilarious adventure for children with Mr. Mummific, the mummy with attitude. Having described his death and long mummification process in his last book, How I Became a Mummy, he now tells the story of his mishaps, misunderstandings, and misadventures as he leaves his tomb through the False Door to embark on the complicated and hazardous journey to the Afterlife aboard the magnificent Ship of Millions. The dangers he faces along the way (and desperately hopes to avoid) include being left hanging upside-down from the cavern ceiling, being swallowed (and vomited out again) by a giant serpent, or becoming a tasty morsel for the hideous Eater of the Dead. Once again, the pompous and frequently perplexed former pharaoh is our entertaining guide to some of the traditions and beliefs of the ancient Egyptians. Illustrated with eighty colorful scenes from the deathly existence of the funniest mummy you’ll ever meet, Mummies, Monsters, and the Ship of Millions is a further ghastly treat for children and Egyptologists of all ages.

Mummies, Monsters, and the Ship of Millions

Mariam D. Ekhtiar

Masterpieces from the Department of Islamic Art in The Metropolitan Museum of Art (Arabic edition)

$65.00

A full-color introduction to the most outstanding pieces in the Metropolitan Museum's superb Islamic collection, in Arabic

This expansive book reveals the great diversity and range of art of the Arab lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, and later South Asia. Published to coincide with the historic reopening of the galleries of the Metropolitan Museum's Islamic Art Department, it presents nearly three hundred masterpieces from one of the finest collections in the world.

The works range chronologically from the origins of Islam in the seventh century through the nineteenth century, and geographically from as far west as Spain and Morocco to as far east as India. Outstanding miniature paintings and illuminated manuscripts, ceramics, textiles, carpets, glass, and metalwork reflect the mutual influence of artistic practice in the sacred and secular realms. Many of these beautiful objects display the rich traditions of calligraphy, vegetal ornament (the arabesque), and geometric patterning that distinguish the arts of the Islamic world.

With seven informative essays and almost three hundred catalogue entries—supplemented by introductory essays on the collection and its display—this handsome and comprehensive overview will enlighten the specialist and the general reader alike.

Masterpieces from the Department of Islamic Art in The Metropolitan Museum of Art (Arabic edition)

Deborah Manley

A Cairo Anthology

$19.95

Cairo has long been recognized as one of the great cities of the world, and many travelers have recorded their descriptions of it over the centuries—from the early eye-witness account of Herodotus to the reflections of Sir Richard Burton, Florence Nightingale, and Mark Twain. A Cairo Anthology gathers together the impressions of many of these writers: with them we experience the excitement of exploring the great city, through its crowded streets and colorful bazaars, we enter the hotels, hire donkeys, ascend to the historic Citadel, and look out across the Nile toward the Sphinx and the Pyramids, and we visit those vast monuments that are in reality always larger and more extraordinary than one can believe, and climb to their summits to gaze back at Cairo, the Mother of the World. About the series: The elegant, pocket-sized volumes in the AUC Press Anthology series feature the writings and observations of travel writers and diarists through the centuries. Vivid and evocative travelers’ accounts of some of the world’s great cities and regions are enhanced by the exquisite vintage design in small hardback format that make the books ideal gift books as well as perfect travel companions. Designed on cream paper stock and beautifully illustrated with line drawings and archival photographs.

Samia Louis

Kallimni ‘Arabi Aktar

$35.00

The complete series of innovative new coursebooks in Egyptian colloquial Arabic

Aimed at the growing number of students studying Arabic worldwide, Kallimni ‘Arabi Aktar takes an innovative, functional approach to the study of Egyptian colloquial Arabic—the spoken dialect most frequently studied and most widely understood in the Arab world. Picking up where the previous title in this series, Kallimni ‘Arabi, leaves off, this volume is designed for adult students at the high-intermediate/low-advanced levels of language proficiency. Drawing on her years of experience as an Arabic instructor, author Samia Louis has developed a course rich in everyday cultural content and real-life functional language as well as comprehensive grammar. Written in accordance with the ACTFL guidelines for teaching Arabic as a foreign language, this highly structured course trains students in the crucial skills, with emphasis on listening and speaking.

Each chapter includes a conversation unit that enables students to improve their communication skills and allows for progressive acquisition of vocabulary and grammar through interactive classroom tasks and everyday situations, from expressing personal likes and dislikes to initiating conversations and describing events and experiences. The online associated audio files carry recordings of each chapter’s dialogues and exercises, made by native Egyptian speakers to enrich the student’s exposure to the spoken language in its natural context and speed.

T.J. Gorton

A Jerusalem Anthology

$19.95

Jerusalem has a special status as a city that is both terrestrial and celestial. The name includes a cognate for ‘peace,’ but the old stones of the city have witnessed epic bloodshed and destruction over the centuries. The three great monotheistic religions all regard it with especial fervor, and it has for at least two millennia attracted pilgrims intent on seeing it before they die. This rich and compelling anthology of travelers’ writings attempts to convey something of the diverse experiences of visitors to this most complex and enigmatic of cities. A Jerusalem Anthology takes us on a journey through a city, not just of illusion and powerful accumulated religious emotion, but of colors, lights, smells, and sounds, an inhabited city as it was directly experienced and lived in through the ages. Memoirs of visitors such as as sixth-century AD pilgrim Saint Silvia of Bordeaux, medieval Jerusalemite al-Muqaddasi, Grand Tour voyagers Gustave Flaubert and Alexander Kinglake, the humorous Mark Twain, or the cynical T.E. Lawrence provide vivid and sometimes disturbing vignettes of the Holy City at very different times in its tumultuous history.

Zora O'Neill

All Strangers Are Kin

$19.95

Winner of the 2017 SATW Lowell Thomas Award for Best Travel Book

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.

Join O’Neill for a grand tour through the Middle East. You will laugh with her in Egypt, delight in the stories she passes on from the United Arab Emirates, and find yourself transformed by her experiences in 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 that is thousands of miles away right to your door.

A natural storyteller with an eye for the deeply absurd and the deeply human, Zora O’Neill explores the indelible links between culture and communication. A powerful testament to the dynamism of language, All Strangers Are Kin reminds us that learning another tongue leaves you rich with so much more than words.

Hala Halim

Alif 37

$89.95

The articles in Alif 37 address the intersection of literature and journalism, in a wide variety of Arabophone, Francophone, Anglophone, and Latin American contexts, analyzing the literary in relation to an array of journalistic genres and forums, including the interview, investigative journalism, the questionnaire, the blogosphere, creative non-fiction and reportage, literary websites, cultural periodicals, the autobiographical essay, and writers’ opinion articles. Complemented by the testimonies of two journalist–littérateurs and an interview with an artist–poet–art critic, the studies present fresh aspects of Arab literary modernity, littérature engagée, the politics of reception and translation in cultural journalism, canon-formation in relation to journalism, the journalistic delineation of a literary generation’s profile, gender and censorship of creative writers, and revolution and civil strife.

Sameh Fathy

Classic Egyptian Movies

$39.95

A prolific film industry has flourished on the banks of the Nile since the earliest days of cinema, producing movies that have been hugely popular and immensely influential not only in Egypt but across the Arab world. Concentrating on productions written and produced entirely in Egypt, Sameh Fathy—a film critic with an encyclopedic knowledge of the history of Egyptian cinema—here selects the 101 most important movies to come out of Cairo’s famous studios over the last eighty years. From classic comedies like Salam Is Fine to social dramas like The Second Wife, and from literary adaptations like Call of the Curlew to masterpieces of the cinematic art like The Night of Counting the Years, the author introduces us to each film’s writers, producers, directors, and stars, and explains the movie’s particular historical, cultural, or artistic significance. Illustrated throughout with posters and stills from all the movies covered.

Mona Baker

Alif 38

$89.95

The point of departure for this special issue of Alif is that knowledge is 'produced' rather than 'discovered,' and that translation is a core mechanism for the production and circulation of all forms of knowledge. This topic has received relatively limited attention in translation studies to date, and even less in related disciplines such as cultural studies and the history of ideas. This issue aims to encourage sustained engagement with the role played by translation in the production of knowledges across the entire spectrum of human activities. Contributors offer theoretical, empirical, and historical accounts of the impact of translation on the production, renegotiation, and reification of knowledge.