Saqi Books

"Filled with humor and honesty."—Kate Forster

"Funny, wise, and moving. . . . A tribute to the fabulous power of female friendship."—Jaishree Misra

It is a truth universally acknowledged . . .

Esma is a modern Muslim woman with an age-old dilemma. She is well-educated, well-traveled, and has excellent taste in music, but the hunt for Mr. Right leads her to a number of Mr. Wrongs.

Together with wild-haired Ruby, principled Lisa, and drop-dead gorgeous Nirvana, Esma forms the No Sex in the City Club.

Her quest for The One (or Mr. Almost-Perfect) was never going to be easy, but soon enough it takes an unexpected and thrilling detour.

Randa Abdel-Fattah is an award-winning writer and best-selling author of Does My Head Look Big in This? The author of eight novels for young adults, Randa is also a litigation lawyer and human rights activist. No Sex in the City is her first novel for adults. She lives in Sydney, Australia, with her husband and two children.

People of African and Caribbean descent have inhabited the British Isles for centuries. Paul Gilroy, renowned for his work exploring the social and cultural dimensions of black Britishness, has assembled a living history of black people in the British Isles. Spanning two hundred years, this collection features images of black Britons at work, at war, and at play.

Paul Gilroy was a professor of sociology and African American studies at Yale University until 2005, when he left to become a professor of social theory at The London School of Economics and Political Science.

This account of the first major forum to review relations between Britain and Egypt, held in London in 2006, demonstrates how political, economic, and cultural interaction between the countries has developed since the Suez invasion of 1956.

Egyptian and British contributors include government ministers and specialists in history, economics, Egyptology, business, education, culture, and international affairs.

Published in association with the London Middle East Institute (LMEI) at SOAS.

Noel Brehony is a chairman of Menas Associates, a member of the British Egyptian Society Committee, and on the advisory board of LMEI at SOAS, University of London.

Ayman El-Desouky is a lecturer in Arabic and comparative literature at SOAS.

The contributors in The Gulf Family examine the paradox of the persisting importance of family and tribe in the face of modernization. They evaluate past and present roles of kinship in the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) states, assess the impacts of change, and speculate on likely future patterns of social, economic, and political organization. Published in association with the London Middle East Institute at SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies).

Alanoud Alsharekh is a member of the Advisory Council of the London Middle East Institute at the School of Oriental and African Studies and a consultant for the United Nations Development Fund for Women.

Kahlil Gibran was born into a Christian family in Lebanon in 1883 and was raised in the United States. His book of poetic essays, The Prophet, is an international classic, translated into over forty languages since its debut in 1923.

Gibran’s life is retraced with a simplicity akin to that of Gibran’s own writing, through his letters, his publisher’s archives, and unpublished documents, revealing the extent of his influence on statesmen and fellow citizens alike, and the extraordinary message of peace and hope in all of his work.

Alexandre Najjar was born in Lebanon in 1967 and works as a lawyer.

“One of the most poignant testimonies to the Lebanese civil war.”—Moris Farhi

As an uneasy peace settles over war-torn Beirut, a woman reflects: Events in Bosnia, Rwanda, and Argentina remind her of the tragedies that shaped her life.

What has she achieved in her voluntary exile, and who would she have become if she had stayed? Would she have learned to forgive, like Umm Ali, or contemplated revenge, like Leila’s grandmother? And who was Said? Gentle grocery boy, bloodthirsty torturer, or both?

Mai Ghoussoub (1952–2007), artist, author, and playwright, was born in Lebanon.

This is the first major study of the alternatives confronting Iraq as it seeks to rebuild its vital oil industry while simultaneously constructing a new political system. The eminent contributors use comparative analysis to suggest how Iraq might best be rebuilt. Published in association with the London Middle East Institute at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS).

Robert Springborg holds the MBI Al Jaber Chair in Middle East studies at SOAS and is director of the London Middle East Institute.

Her response to the horrors of our times gives her work purpose and energy. . . . In her depiction of everyday mental and physical brutality, she creates images of aesthetic appeal but disturbing ambiguity.—Lutz Becker

The Iranian artist Parastou Forouhar expresses her reaction to the perplexing situations in her homeland through a wide variety of techniques, from photography to digital drawings and multi-media installations.

This publication presents a selection of her most startling work so far, created in response to the dramatic social and political upheaval that she experienced after the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and the murder of her parents in Tehran.

Though the inspiration behind Forouhar's subject matter may be tragic, her work has a great emotional range: the results are sometimes macabre, occasionally darkly humorous, and often purely joyful.

Parastou Forouhar was born in 1962 in Tehran, and since 1991 has lived and worked in Germany. She received her BA in art from the University of Tehran (1990) and her MA from the Hochschule für Gestaltung Offenbach am Main, Germany (1994).

Rose Issa is a curator and writer who has championed visual art and film from the Arab world and Iran for nearly thirty years. Her gallery Rose Issa Projects showcases the best in upcoming and established artists from the Arab world and Iran.

In 2011 thousands of Arab youth took to the streets revealing the genesis of a new generation sparked by the desire for civil liberties and participatory democracy.

Arab Youth explores the antecedents of the upheavals and anticipates alternative venues of resistance that marginalized youth—from Lebanon, Syria, and Palestine to Saudi Arabia, Morocco, and Iran—can mobilize to realize their emancipatory expectations.

Samir Khalaf is a professor of sociology at the American University of Beirut. He has held academic positions at Princeton, Harvard, MIT, and New York University.

Roseanne Saad Khalaf is associate professor of English and creative writing at the American University of Beirut.

"A passionate call for political and social change in Arab countries . . . and a stern critique of the status quo."Jeremy Bowen, BBC Middle East editor

The problems in the Middle East are always someone else’s fault.

While the West blames dictators and extremists, Arabs often blame centuries of foreign interference. For many, both in the East and West, the root problem is a lack of freedom.

Looking beyond the turmoil reported on our TV screens, Guardian journalist Brian Whitaker examines the "freedom deficit" that affects Arabs in their daily lives: their struggles against corruption, discrimination, and bureaucracy, and the stifling authoritarianism that pervades homes, schools, and mosques as well as presidential palaces.

Drawing on a wealth of new research and wide-ranging interviews, Whitaker analyzes the views of Arabs living in the region and argues that in order to achieve peace, prosperity, and full participation in today’s global economy, Arabs should embrace political and far-reaching social and cultural change.

Brian Whitaker was Middle East editor at the Guardian for seven years and is currently an editor for the newspaper’s Comment is Free website. He is the author of Unspeakable Love: Gay and Lesbian Life in the Middle East (Saqi Books, 2006; also published in the United States by the University of California Press, 2006). His website, www.al-bab.com, is devoted to Arab culture and politics.

The Gulf States are assuming an ever more important role in the global political economy, and new cultural and political identities are emerging, both through natural processes and as a result of state design. This book explores some of the issues raised by this developing profile.

Alanoud Alsharekh is a member of the advisory council of the London Middle East Institute (LMEI) at SOAS and a consultant for the UN Development Fund for Women.

Robert Springborg holds the MBI Al Jaber Chair in Middle East Studies at SOAS and is director of the LMEI.

Sarah Stewart is deputy director of the LMEI and teaches in the Department of the Study of Religions at SOAS.

Mai Ghoussoub—artist, writer, and co-founder of Saqi Books—commented widely on culture, aesthetics, and the Middle East, and published many books in English, Arabic, and French. Gathered here is a selection of her finest writings—on war (in the Middle East and elsewhere), the sexist gaze, censorship, Abu Ghraib, the city, and art’s encounter with tragedy—laced throughout with Ghoussoub’s signature humor and an enduring sense of humanity.

Mai Ghoussoub (1952–2007), artist, author, playwright, and founding director of Saqi Books, was born in Lebanon and moved to London in 1979, during the Lebanese civil war.

Arab Society and Culture provides wide-ranging essays and supplementary readings that examine recent social and cultural change in Arab societies.

From investigations of consumerism and Islam on the Internet to changing attitudes toward sex, gender, and homosexuality, this collection challenges stereotypes and assesses the impact of increasingly global and mobile lifestyles on family structure, public space, and private life. Emphasis is placed on how local cultures are adapting to global and postmodern transformations.

Samples are taken from a wide range of writings on the Middle East, including essays by Orhan Pamuk, Bertrand Russell, Edward Said, Amin Maalouf, and Nawal El Saadawi. Many of the contributors have US academic posts and affiliations.

Samir Khalaf is a professor of sociology and director of the Center for Behavioral Research at the American University of Beirut. He has held academic appointments at Princeton, Harvard, MIT, and New York University, and is most recently the co-editor of Sexuality in the Arab World (Saqi Books, 2006).

Roseanne Saad Khalaf is an assistant professor of English and creative writing at the American University of Beirut, and she is the co-editor of Transit Beirut (Saqi Books, 2006).

The Middle East was both the birthplace of astronomy and the center for its development during the medieval period, and this volume offers a fascinating insight into Arabic advances in astronomy and their profound influence on science in the rest of the world.

This is the first of two titles published to launch a new series offering insight into Arabic advances in science and culture. Aimed at the general reader, the titles are illustrated and contain glossaries, indices, and suggestions for further reading.

John M. Steele is a Royal Society University Research Fellow at the University of Durham.

From Africa to Asia, there are areas that are home to minority and, in some cases, majority groups of Twelver Shia. Geography and history place Iran at the center of these Shia worlds, but to what extent can we speak of an "Iranian model" that these groups follow?

This essential work explores the tenuous relations between these groups and Iran while shedding light on understudied communities, such as those in the Gulf, Turkey, Afghanistan, central Asia, and Senegal.

Sabrina Mervin is a senior researcher at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and the co-director of the IISMM (Institut d'études de l'Islam et des sociétés du monde musulman).

This collection brings together leading voices involved in shaping the artistic and cultural scenes outside the Western mainstream. Focusing on the concept of belonging, the varied contributors examine responses to the challenges posed by globalization.

The essays explore place and nomadism, national identity and transcultural expression, including the use of signs and metaphor. The contributors reveal how artists from traditional societies find in their cultural heritage the basis of creative expression.

Kamal Boullata is a visual artist and writer. He is the author of Recovery of Place: A Study of Contemporary Palestinian Art (in Arabic, 2000) and the forthcoming Palestinian Art: 1850–2005 (Saqi Books).

"What really comes through and is startlingly refreshing are al-Jezairy’s encounters with ordinary Iraqis . . . during the American occupation. Through them come all the extraordinary Iraqi stories that have been so hard for Westerners to capture all these years." Rageh Omaar

In 1979, journalist Zuhair al-Jezairy fled Iraq and certain death after openly criticizing Saddam Hussein’s regime. Twenty-five years later he is back and cautiously celebrating the toppling of the hated Ba’ath Party.

As editor of a newspaper, he breaks the Oil for Food scandal, disclosing the names of Arabs and Westerners who were involved, and is subsequently forced to resign. He then sets up a television company and travels all over Iraq, documenting the country’s descent into sectarianism and hopeless violence, soon becoming a target himself.

Al-Jezairy’s firsthand accounts of the looting of Baghdad, the destruction of government buildings, and indiscriminate bombings present a searing, personal, and unique view of Iraq after Saddam Hussein.

Zuhair al-Jezairy lives in Iraq, where he manages the country’s first independent news agency, Voice of Iraq. He has published nine books, including two novels, in Arabic.

John West is a journalist and a graduate in classics from Balliol College, Oxford. He has covered three wars in the Middle East as a correspondent for Reuters.

Arguing that Islam is a lyrical view of life in which sexuality enjoys a privileged status, this work represents an attempt to integrate the religious and the sexual. It examines the problem of whether this harmony of sexuality and religious faith is achieved in practice.

Born in 1932 in Kairouan, Tunisia, Abdelwahab Bouhdiba is professor of Islamic sociology at the University of Tunis, where he is also director of the Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Economiques et Sociales. He has served as an adviser to international organizations such as UNESCO and the United Nations. He was awarded the Sharjah Prize for Arab Culture in 2004.

The sharp increase in oil revenues since 2002 has left the Arab Gulf States with billions of petro-dollars. But how will these countries fare in the post-oil era? The rulers of these states are taking serious measures to ensure the survival of their economies, and indeed their regimes, in a world with scarce mineral resources.

This book explores the extent to which these countries have been and will be able to prepare for the future by transforming themselves into serious international destinations for tourism, finance, healthcare, and education. It also considers the implications of failure for the future survival of their regimes.

Topics covered include sovereign funds, Islamic finance, new technologies, higher education, and the role of women.

A timely study into this vibrant and important region, this book will provide food for thought for academics, policy makers, and general readers.

Nabil Sultan is a senior lecturer at the Liverpool Hope University.

David Weir is a professor at Liverpool Hope University.

Zeinab Karake-Shalhoub is director of research at the Dubai International Financial Centre in the United Arab Emirates.

In Honour Killing, Ayse Onal conducts interviews with men convicted of killing their mothers, sisters, and daughters. The result is a fascinating, revealing, and ultimately tragic account of ruined lives—of both the victims and the murderers.

With an introduction by Joan Smith contextualizing honor killings both in Turkey and elsewhere in Europe and the Middle East.

Ayse Onal is an award-winning journalist who has reported on Turkish politics, organized crime, and conflicts in the Middle East for over two decades. For ten years, she was blacklisted by the Turkish state and could not write or work for the Turkish media until the political embargo was lifted in 2005.

Islam and Capitalism is a learned, engaging rebuttal of the cultural reductionism of Max Weber and others who have tried to explain the politics and society of the Middle East by reference to some unchanging entity called “Islam,” typically characterized as instinctively hostile to capitalism. Maxime Rodinson looks at the facts, analyzing economic texts with his customary common sense, to show that Muslims never had any problem making money.

Maxime Rodinson was a French Marxist historian, sociologist, and a professor at the renowned École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris.

The Arabic alphabet has a fascinating history, one that is entwined with the development of culture and society in the Middle East. The authors trace the origins of the Arabic alphabet back to Aramaic, a descendant of Phoenecian, which itself gave rise to the Hebrew and Greek alphabets.

The third title in the series that offers a primer for both general readers and students alike, A Brief Introduction to the Arabic Alphabet is illustrated and contains glossaries, indices, and suggestions for further reading.

John Healey is a professor of Semitic studies at the University of Manchester.

Rex Smith is an Arabist, historian, and scholar of the medieval history of Yemen.

“Listen in rapture to the voices of modern Islam. I am in awe of this tremendous, important work.”—Daniel Futterman, actor and screenwriter, on Noor

“Not only a fascinating drama, but a most important, highly instructive study of the major forces within Islam . . . that grip our modern world and may help decide our global future.”—Stanley Wolpert, on The Trial of Dara Shikoh

Noor is the tale of three brothers attempting to rescue their kidnapped sister. Each brother represents a different ideological position in the contemporary Islamic world. While exploring the crisis of modern Islam, Noor is a heartfelt treatise for religious tolerance.

The Trial of Dara Shikoh tells the story of the eldest son of seventeenth-century Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan. Heir apparent, Dara Shikoh is a learned scholar with a strong belief in the unity of different faiths: Hinduism, Islam, Sikhism, Christianity, and Judaism. Akbar Ahmed’s play highlights the complex issue of religious interpretation within a human context.

With an introduction by Ari Roth, artistic director of Theater J in Washington, DC.

Akbar Ahmed is the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies at the American University, Washington, DC, and in 2008 he was appointed Distinguished Chair for Middle East/Islamic Studies at the US Naval Academy, Annapolis. He is Pakistan’s former ambassador to Great Britain and was awarded the Heschel-King Award for Interfaith Activism on King Day 2009. He is the author of Journey into Islam: The Crisis of Globalization, published in June 2007.

"More than any other woman, Nawal El Saadawi has come has come to embody the trials of Arab feminism."—San Francisco Chronicle

"The leading spokeswoman on the status of women in the Arab World."—Guardian

"Saadawi writes with directness and passion."—The New York Times

Bodour, a distinguished literary critic and university professor, carries with her a dark secret. As a young university student, she fell in love with a political activist and gave birth to an illegitimate daughter, Zeina, whom she abandoned on the streets of Cairo.

Zeina grows up to become one of Egypt's most beloved entertainers, despite being deprived of a name and a home. In contrast, Bodour remains trapped in a loveless marriage, pining for her daughter. In an attempt to find solace she turns to literature, writing a fictionalized account of her life. But when the novel goes missing, Bodour is forced on a journey of self discovery, reliving and reshaping her past and her future.

Will Bodour ever discover who stole the novel? Is there any hope of her being reunited with Zeina?

Nawal El Saadawi is an internationally renowned Egyptian writer, feminist, and psychiatrist. Her works have been translated into more than thirty languages.

This short book offers a unique overview of modern Arabic literature, focusing on developments over the last fifty years and providing a guide to the literary landscape, indicating the major landmarks in the shape of authors, ideas, and debates.

This is the second of two titles published to launch a new series offering insight into Arabic advances in science and culture. Aimed at the general reader, the titles are illustrated and contain glossaries, indices, and suggestions for further reading.

David Tresilian has taught at Columbia University and the American University in Cairo. He has been at the American University of Paris since 1999.

“Outstanding . . . tender, sexy and alarming.”—Jim Crace

When Alfred White, patriarch of the White family, collapses at work, his wife, May, and their three disparate children find themselves confronting issues they would rather ignore. Maggie Gee skillfully weaves a narrative that reminds us that racism not only devastates the lives of its victims, but also those of its perpetrators.

Maggie Gee is the first female chair of the Royal Society of Literature and lives in London. The White Family was shortlisted for the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction and the IMPAC Award. The Flood was longlisted for the Orange Prize.

"[Ibrahim Abu Lughod is] Palestine's foremost academic and intellectual."—Edward Said

Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt in 1798 exposed the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire to a Europe vastly different from the one known to the Arabs of the Middle Ages. At the start of the nineteenth century, Arabs were unprepared for the social, economic, and political progress made in Europe.

By 1870, however, their vague notions had evolved into a fairly sophisticated knowledge of the historic background and contemporary achievements of various European nations. The new reform movements in Egypt and the Fertile Crescent had incorporated into their programs the ideological premises and political institutions of European liberalism.

The Arab Rediscovery of Europe is a pioneering work tracing the role of the Arab intelligentsia in increasing Arab awareness of Europe and in shaping an Arab image of the West. First published in 1963, it was hugely influential in instigating a detailed study of Arab views and experiences of Europe during the reign of Egypt’s Mohammad Ali in the early to mid-nineteenth century.

Ibrahim Abu-Lughod (1929–2001) was an American Palestinian academic, writer, and editor. He taught at Smith College, Massachusetts; McGill University, Montreal; and then spent thirty-four years at Northwestern University, Illinois, where he founded the Institute of African Studies. He founded the Association of Arab-American University Graduates in 1968 and the journal Arab Studies Quarterly in 1978, and held two UNESCO posts. He later became a professor and vice president of Bir Zeit University in the West Bank.

The Caucasus has an extremely rich folk literature, almost unknown among English speakers, which includes myths, legends, magical tales, anecdotes, and proverbs.

The one hundred and one legends included in this book reflect the cultures of fourteen different ethnic groups—their dynamism and the matters that concerned them: survival against external dangers, the risk of starvation, and the persistence of the family or clan as a coordinated group. Descended from an oral tradition, much of their knowledge was retained in memories and passed down the generations. Yet, with the introduction of the alphabet, the way of life they portray is rapidly becoming extinct.

The translation is derived from the manuscripts of Russian collectors working out of the Russian Empire in the late nineteenth century and from the Soviet Union in the mid-twentieth century. The text is a mixture of prose and verse, reflecting how the legends would have been performed by storytellers within the culture.

This volume includes a map, bibliography, appendix, glossary, keyword and theme analysis, and references.

David Hunt is an expert of Caucasus folk literature. He was awarded the McDowell Prize from the Folklore Society in 2008.

Lebanon today is at a fateful crossroads in its eventful socio-cultural and political history. Imperiled by unsettling transformations, from postwar reconstruction and rehabilitation to the forces of postmodernity and globalism, it remains adrift.

In this landmark study, Samir Khalaf explores how ordinary citizens, burdened by the consequences of war, persisting regional rivalries, mounting economic deprivation, and diminishing prospects for well-being, find meaning and coherence in a society that has not only lost its moorings and direction, but also its sense of control.

Samir Khalaf is professor of sociology at the American University of Beirut. He has held academic positions at Harvard, Princeton, MIT, and New York University.

"This is a well chosen collection of some of the best Arab writers I've come across, with a broad spectrum of themes, well chosen and beautifully rendered into English."—Raja Shehadeh, author of Palestinian Walks

In November 2009, the International Prize for Arabic Fiction organized a workshop for eight critically acclaimed writers from Egypt, Sudan, Tunisia, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and the United Arab Emirates.

This bilingual volume brings together the pieces produced during this workshop, showcasing the creativity of a younger generation of Arab writers. A range of styles and themes are explored: from Egyptian social realism to a tale from the deserts of Darfur, a grim Tunisian allegory, family drama in Saudi Arabia, and a story about home and exile in Sana’a.

Includes a foreword co-written by Inaam Kachachi, an Iraqi born writer whose debut novel The American Granddaughter was shortlisted for the 2008–2009 International Prize for Arabic Fiction, and the Lebanese author Jabbour Douaihy, whose novel June Rain was shortlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2007–2008.

Peter Clark is a Middle East specialist, a trustee of the International Prize for Arabic Fiction, and a contributing editor of Banipal. He has translated fiction, history, drama, and poetry from Arabic since 1980.

Dr. Abdulhadi H. Taher outlines the role played by the Saudi government in defining strategies and drawing up plans for economic development, which have produced vast revenues for the kingdom. He also looks at the international negotiations and conferences in which Saudi Arabia took part in its efforts to regain control over its natural resources and guarantee stable oil prices.

Abdulhadi H. Taher received his PhD in business administration from the University of California, Berkeley in 1964. He has worked in both the public and private sectors, and has served as a board member of Aramco and governor of Petromin.

The Druze, who can be traced back to eleventh-century Levant, have long intrigued scholars of the Middle East. Their obscure origins and blending of beliefs from Ismali Shi‘ism, animism, Greek philosophy, Jewish and Christian mysticism, Iranian Gnosticism, and Buddhism have set them apart from their neighbors.

The author reveals the remarkable Druze pantheon of semi-deities and investigates their dogmas and rituals. The book also includes rarely seen extracts from the sacred writings of the Druze.

Philip Khuri Hitti (1886–1978) was born in Lebanon and taught at Princeton University from 1926 to 1954.

“Being a woman in Iran is hard, and working as a woman photographer is even harder.”—Shadi Ghadirian

Shadi Ghadirian is one of Iran’s leading contemporary photographers. Born in Tehran in 1974, she has exhibited widely in Europe and the United States, and her work has been collected by museums worldwide.

She came to the limelight in the late 1990s with her Qajar series, in which she examines the paradoxical position of women in Iran. Women in traditional clothing pose with items such as a mountain bike or a boom box.

Rose Issa is a freelance curator, specializing in contemporary visual arts and films from the Arab world and Iran.

"The Arab world's greatest living poet."—The New York Times

"Adonis is one of the most important major literary figures of our century. His vision is extraordinary, his poetry sublime . . . a master of our times."—V. S. Naipaul

At first glance, Sufism and Surrealism appear to be as far removed from one another as is possible. Adonis, however, draws convincing parallels between the two, contesting that God, in the traditional sense, does not exist in Surrealism or in Sufism, and that both are engaged in parallel quests for the nature of the Absolute, through "holy madness" and the deregulation of the senses.

This is a remarkable investigation into the common threads of thought that run through seemingly polarised philosophies from East and West, written by a man Edward Said referred to as "the most eloquent spokesman and explorer of Arab modernity."

Adonis is one of the most celebrated poets and essayists of the Arab world. Born in Syria in 1930, he fled political persecution and settled in Lebanon in the 1950s, where he led the modernist movement in Arabic poetry. He has written more than thirty books in Arabic, including the pioneering work An Introduction to Arab Poetics, and was awarded the Goethe Prize in 2011 for his contribution to international literature. His other awards include the Spiros Vergos Prize for Freedom of Expression, the Bjørnson Prize, the International Nâzim Hikmet Poetry Award, and the Syria-Lebanon Best Poet Award.

“Boullata takes the reader close to the struggle of those visionary, obstinate Palestinian artists who create so that their anonymous heroic land with its ancestral olive trees may survive.”—John Berger

“It is rare and exciting to find an art book full of persuasive, urgent visual imagery whose language and strategies are ultimately unfamiliar, whatever their surface appearance, to the complacent western eye. And it is refreshing to sense that the pull of much of the work derives from and points back to Palestinian culture itself, rather than being necessarily part of the self-conscious east-west discourse which so preoccupied Edward Said. As such it represents another advance in international understanding of Palestinian history and aspiration, but determinedly through the artist's eye.”—Guardian UK

This diverse selection features pre-1948 paintings alongside contemporary media works, highlighting the political concerns of Palestinian artists and their unique contributions to modern Arab culture. Works by artists who live in Palestine are examined alongside those of artists from the Palestinian diaspora.

Kamal Boullata is a painter and writer. His writings on Palestinian art have appeared in numerous art and academic periodicals, and he recently edited Belonging and Globalisation: Critical Essays on Contemporary Art and Culture (Saqi Books).

"A detailed and fascinating biography."—The Economist

"A masterpiece of scholarship. . . . [Vassiliev] has managed to bring to life the legacy of one of Saudi Arabia's most interesting and influential figures."—Anoush Ehteshami, Durham University

In 1964 Faisal bin Abdul Aziz became king of a country holding a quarter of the world's oil reserves, also home to Mecca and Medina. He was called "the most powerful Arab ruler in centuries." Eleven years later, in front of television cameras, his nephew shot him at point-blank range.

In this authoritative biography, Alexei Vassiliev tells the story of a pious, cautious and resolute leader who steered Saudi Arabia through a minefield of domestic problems, inter-Arab relations and the decline of Soviet influence in the Middle East. King Faisal maintained ties with both Egypt and the United States through two Arab-Israeli wars and the 1973 Arab oil embargo, which revolutionized the world energy market. Throughout, he staked high hopes on cooperation with the United States, a relationship that is still vital to both countries' interests.

Exhaustively researched and including original documents and interviews in Arabic, Russian, and English, King Faisal of Saudi Arabia offers a unique perspective of this seminal figure and is key to understanding the Arab world today.

Alexei Vassiliev is Honorary President of the Institute for African Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences. He is the author of over forty books, including the acclaimed The History of Saudi Arabia, winner of the Choice Outstanding Academic Book Award, and Central Asia: Political and Economic Challenges in the Post-Soviet Era.

"A unique book. . . . al-Azm sought to strip Arab thought of its belief in fate and folk tales and superstition. . . . He told his people the sort of truths that outsiders are too embarrassed to tell, even when they were themselves able to see these truths."—Fouad Ajami

The 1967 War—which led to the defeat of Syria, Jordan, and Egypt by Israel—felt like an unprecedented and unimaginable disaster for the Arab world at the time. For many, the easiest solution was to shift the blame and to ignore some of the glaring defects of Arab society.

Hailed as one of the foremost Arab intellectuals of recent decades, Sadik al-Azm was one of the few to challenge such a view in his seminal Self-Criticism After the Defeat. In it, he offered a penetrating analysis that probed deep into Arab society, and reasoned that Arabs had to embrace democracy, gender equality, and science to achieve progress.

Self-Criticism After the Defeat represents a milestone in modern Arab intellectual history. It marked a turning point in Arab discourse about society and politics on publication in 1968, and spawned other intellectual ventures into Arab self-criticism. This is the first translation of the work into English.

Born in Damascus in 1934, Sadik al-Azm is professor emeritus of modern European philosophy at the University of Damascus, Syria. He earned his PhD (1961) from Yale University, and was visiting professor in the department of near Eastern studies at Princeton University until 2008.

“Let there be spaces in your togetherness.
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.” Khalil Gibran

Inspired by love poems from the Arab and Muslim world, Hassan Massoudy’s elegant, swirling compositions capture in calligraphy what countless poets have wrought with words. Through broad strokes and vibrant colours, the artist conveys the essence and meaning of love as captured by Rumi, Khalil Gibran, Ibn Zaydoun and Paul Eluard among others.

With over one hundred colour illustrations, Calligraphies of Love is a unique gift book bringing together new works by one of the greatest calligraphers of our time.

Hassan Massoudy was born in 1944 in Najaf, southern Iraq. He moved to Baghdad in 1961 where he learnt the various classical styles of calligraphy, and studied graphic design and fine arts. He then studied at L’École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, France, where he was further influenced by the art of Leger, Matisse, Soulages and Picasso. Massoudy’s work has been exhibited throughout Europe and the Middle East, and is in the permanent collections of the British Museum in London and the Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts, among others. His other publications in English include The Calligrapher’s Garden.

This powerful collection of poems details the harrowing experiences endured by Abani and other political prisoners at the hands of Nigeria’s military regime in the late 1980s.

Designed as a reader for intermediate students of Arabic and those who may wish to broaden their appreciation of leading Middle Eastern writers, this collection features stories in both Arabic and English translation. Prefaced by an author biography plus notes on context and background, each story is followed by a glossary and discussion of problematic language points.

Authors include Naguib Mahfouz, Edwar al-Kharrat, Hanan al-Shaykh, Layla al-Uthman, and Mohamed Choukri.

Ronak Husni is a senior lecturer at Heriot-Watt University, teaching Arabic language, literature, and translation.

Daniel L. Newman is the course director of the MA in Arabic/English Translation at the University of Durham and the author of An Imam in Paris (Saqi Books).

Who shot Kamar al-Dawar Alwan? Was it a crime of passion? What was the role of the beautiful peasant girl Rim? Is the mysterious Sheikh Asfur as crazy as he seems? Partly autobiographical, Diary of a Country Prosecutor is an Egyptian comedy of errors. Imbued with the ideals of a European education, the young public prosecutor encounters a world of poverty and backwardness where an imported legal system is both alien and incomprehensible.

Tawfik al-Hakim was born in Alexandria in 1898 and studied law in Paris. He became the Arab world’s leading dramatist, as well as a major short story writer.

Suleiman's reign as Sultan marked the apogee of Ottoman power. His empire held dominion over three continents, and, populated by more than thirty million inhabitants, prospered under a well-directed and authoritarian economy. In this celebrated book André Clot successfully produces both a life of the man and a stimulating popular history of the Ottoman Empire during this period.

André Clot (1909–2002) was a French historian and journalist. He lived in Turkey and the Middle East for many years and was an expert on Islam.