Saqi Books

"Vauxhall is written in the way that English should be written—clean, swift, and with flashes of lightning."—Bonnie Greer

"A powerful novel . . . Gabadamosi describes with poetic rhythm a child's awakening in a violent, confusing London."—Daily Mail

1970s London: Young Michael runs past the railway arches and terraces of Vauxhall. Reaching the street on which he lives, he witnesses a young girl fall from a window, her sari floating down behind her. Her lifeless body lies crumpled on the ground.

This incident marks the beginning of a period in which Michael's life threatens to unravel. From his sister's taunts to a series of house fires, police harassment, his parents' crumbling marriage and the realization that the council intends to clear out the "slum" he calls home, he learns to navigate his way through an array of obstacles, big and small.

Vauxhall is a tender portrait of a young boy looking for his place in inner city London.

Born in London, Gabriel Gbadamosi is an Irish Nigerian poet, playwright, and essayist. He was AHRC Creative and Performing Arts Fellow at the Pinter Centre, Goldsmiths, and a Judith E. Wilson Fellow for creative writing at Cambridge University. His plays include Shango, Hotel Orpheu, and for radio The Long, Hot Summer of '76 (BBC Radio 3), which won the Richard Imison Award. He has presented Nightwaves on BBC Radio 3 and Art Beat on the BBC World Service.

"My Driver is an entertaining, droll novel, executed with a lovely, light touch. . . . Gee’s control of tone is supremely artful."—Lionel Shriver, Daily Telegraph

"A tour de force—brilliantly structured, surprising, humane, and suspenseful."—Elaine Showalter

"Worldly, witty, enjoyable, impressive."—Doris Lessing

Vanessa Henman, a plucky but accident-prone white writer, flies from London to Uganda for a Pan-African writers’ conference. She also intends to pay her former cleaner, Mary Tendo, a surprise visit. But Mary—now the executive housekeeper of the Sheraton Hotel in Kampala—has her own agenda, and she has secretly summoned Vanessa’s beloved ex-husband Trevor, a plumber, to her home village to help build a well.

The conference over, Vanessa sets off alone on a safari to the distant Bwindi Impenetrable Forest to see the mountain gorillas. Farce teeters on the edge of something much darker when Vanessa quarrels with her driver and a bloody war closes in on Bwindi from Congo. Can anyone save her?

Maggie Gee was chosen as one of Granta’s original "Best Young British Novelists." She has published many novels to great acclaim, including The White Family, shortlisted for the Orange and IMPAC prizes, and My Cleaner and The Flood, which was longlisted for the Orange Prize. She was the first female chair of the Royal Society of Literature, and she lives in London.

Alexandre Najjar’s father is celebrated in his legal profession for his rare eloquence. In the courtroom the word is everything, and his work is his life.

A sudden heart attack leaves him wheelchair-bound and painfully deprived of the eloquence for which he was so well respected. But the love of his family and his unfading hope will help him overcome this trying time.

Alexandre Najjar was born in Lebanon in 1967. A lawyer and literary critic, he has won many prizes for his writing. His books include The School of War (Telegram) and Kahlil Gibran: A Biography (Saqi Books). He lives in Beirut and Paris.

“Eduardo Mendoza is one of contemporary Spain’s most important writers.”—The New York Times Book Review

“Wonderfully inventive and hilarious.”—Guardian

Released from an asylum to help with a police enquiry, the quick-witted and foul-smelling narrator delves deep into the underworld of 1970s Barcelona to investigate the mysterious disappearance of a teenage girl from a convent school, aided only by his prostitute sister Mercedes.

Eduardo Mendoza was born in 1943 in Barcelona. He spent some years in New York, where he worked at the United Nations as an interpreter. His other novels include No Word From Gurb, published by Telegram in 2007.

Part of a successful series that showcases women’s writing from around the world.

Indian women’s stories have been handed down from generation to generation, enriched and embroidered along the way. This collection reflects the vast and complex cultures of India, through British colonial rule and Partition to the present day.

Urvashi Butalia is co-founder of Kali for Women, India’s first feminist publishing house. Her publications include the award-winning The Other Side of Silence: Voices from the Partition of India—a “magnificent and necessary book,” according to Salman Rushdie.

“A rare writer who is willing to address issues topical to contemporary Britain.”—Daily Telegraph

The actors in these short stories quietly and unobtrusively assume their place in the world. An older woman rids herself of social shackles in the hypnotic title story as she moves toward the sea and freedom, a man packs in his day job to sell miniature suitcases, while a woman converts a freelance evangelist after their plane nearly crashes.

Maggie Gee is the author of the well-received novels The White Family and The Flood. She is the first female chair of the Royal Society of Literature.

"A funny, moving, clever book . . . delicious in every sense."—Wendy Holden

Three troubled lives, one cookbook: a recipe for self-discovery . . .

Lilia wakes up one morning to discover that her marriage is not what it seemed. Marc cannot face his empty apartment after the loss of his beloved. Ferda struggles with the demands of family life.

In this sweeping story set in New York, Paris, and Istanbul, courage and desire begin to stir through three very different people.

Born in Izmir, Turkey, Asli Perker is a writer and journalist. A bestseller in Turkey, Soufflé is her first novel to be translated into English.

"Altun's prose has a dreamlike urgency"—John Ashbery

Fighting the Ottoman invaders in Constantinople, Emperor Constantine XI was killed—his body never found.

Legend has it that he escaped in a Genoese ship, cheating certain death at the hands of the Turks and earning himself the title of Immortal Emperor.

Five centuries after his disappearance, three mysterious men contact a young professor living in Istanbul. Members of a secret sect, they have guarded the Immortal Emperor's will for generations. They tell him that he is the next emperor in line and that in order to take possession of his fortune he must carry out his ancestor's last wishes.

What follows is his journey to the heart of a mystery of epic historical significance.

Selçuk Altun was born in Artvin, Turkey in 1950. He is a retired banking executive, a bibliophile and philanthropist. His novels, Songs My Mother Never Taught Me and Many and Many a Year Ago, were listed amongst the top one hundred translated crime fiction by the International Association of Crime Writers. He lives in Istanbul, Turkey.

Who will overthrow the Imam? Who will defeat the oppression, the tyranny, the injustice, and the killings? Then, who is the Imam? Is he the man, the male, the father, the husband, the ruler, the leader?

This powerful and poetic novel by Egypt’s leading feminist writer reveals the underlying hypocrisy of a male-dominated religious state and raises awareness of the insufferable predicament of women in a society that will ultimately self-destruct.

Nawal El Saadawi is an internationally renowned Egyptian writer and feminist. She is currently a distinguished visiting professor at Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia.

"A wise and beautiful book about what it feels like to be alive—I really loved it."—Zadie Smith

"Maggie Gee's account of her life as a writer cuts to the bone as she relives triumphs, rejections, despair and renewal. It's a wonderful book, for its boldness and vigour, and for its piercing honesty."—Claire Tomalin

How do you become a writer, and why?

Maggie Gee's journey starts in a small family in post-war Britain, a long way from the literary world. At seventeen, Maggie goes, a lamb to the slaughter, to university. From the 1960s onwards she lives the defining events of her generation: the coming of the Pill and sexual freedom, tremors in the British layer-cake of class and race. In the 1980s, Maggie finally gets published, falls in love, marries, and has a daughter—but for the next three decades and beyond, she survives, and sometimes thrives, by writing. This frank, bold memoir dares to explore the big questions: success and failure, sex, death, and parenthood—our animal life.

Maggie Gee was chosen as one of Granta's original Best Young British Novelists. She has published many novels to great acclaim, including The White Family, shortlisted for the Orange and IMPAC prizes; My Cleaner; The Flood, longlisted for the Orange Prize; and The Ice People. She was the first female chair of the Royal Society of Literature from 2004–2008 and is now one of its vice presidents.

From the beginning of the world—when God created Audrey Hepburn, the guilt complex, and worker ants—to the end, broadcast live on a TV chat show, A History of the World for Rebels and Somnambulists whips through our tortuous past with the deftness of a surgeon’s scalpel.

Jonah confronts a ship of Norwegian whalers, Little Red Riding Hood gets drunk with the wolf, and Bob Dylan loses his shadow. It is a history unlike any other: at once sinister, alarming, and breathlessly funny.

Jesus del Campo was born in Gijón, Spain. He is a translator, traveler, and doctor of philosophy. His other books include a novel about Snow White.

Winner of the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book for Europe and South Asia.

"A stunning, defiant debut."—Guardian

"Hiller brings to his works not only a craftsman's skill but also a compassion for his characters that proves infectious."—Haaretz

"A chilling rites-of-passage novel set in Beirut in 1982 during the killings in the camps."—The Economist

It is the summer of 1982 and Beirut is under siege. Eighteen-year-old Ivan's parents have just been evacuated from the city with other members of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Ivan stays on, interpreting for international medical volunteers in Sabra refugee camp and working undercover for the PLO. Hoping to get closer to Eli, a Norwegian physiotherapist, he helps her treat Youssef, a camp orphan disabled by a cluster bomb. An unexpected friendship develops between the three and things begin to look up.

But events take a nasty turn when the president-elect is assassinated. The Israeli army enters Beirut and surrounds the camp, with Eli and Youssef trapped inside. What happens next makes international headlines and leaves Ivan scrabbling to salvage something positive from the chaos.

Mischa Hiller, of English–Palestinian descent, was born in England in 1962 and grew up in London, Dar es Salaam, and Beirut. Mischa won the 2009 European Independent Film Festival script competition for his adaptation of Sabra Zoo. He lives with his family in Cambridge, England.

“We could hardly need these more urgently than we do now.”—The Independent

“…A treasure for Western readers who want to familiarize themselves with the complexities of both Lebanese and Palestinian societies as war zones. The stories also constitute an excellent resource for teachers who are struggling to find material that is not one-dimensional in its presentation of Arab women.”-Hala Khamis Nassar, Yale University, in Journal of Middle East Women's Studies

This anthology of Lebanese women fiction writers offers a captivating mix of stories by published authors with established reputations alongside the narratives of younger women whose voices explore new terrain.

From the crippling effects of the civil war in past decades, through longing for romantic adventures in a conservative society, to the functioning of families across the divides of emigration and generational conflict, these voices reflect the rich diversity of the complex multicultural society out of which they emerged.

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

These are the Faroe Islands as they were some fifty years ago: sea-washed and remote, with one generation still tied to the sea for sustenance, and a younger generation turning toward commerce and clerical work in the towns.

At the post-hunt whale-meat auction, Ketil enthusiastically bids for more meat than he can afford. Thus when Ketil is seventy, he and his wife struggle to repay their debt.

Heðin Brú (1901–1987), novelist and translator, was considered the most important Faroese writer of his generation and is known for his fresh and ironic style.

"A thing of beauty. . . . You must read it."—Nadeem Aslam

"A shower of pleasures."—Julia O'Faolain

"Sophisticated, cosmopolitan and seductive, the novel engages mind and senses alike."—André Naffis-Sahely, The Times Literary Supplement

Like his parents, he too spent many hours sending cloud messages to other places, messages of longing for something that he knew existed otherwhere.

London, that distant rainy place his father lived in once, is where Mehran finds himself after leaving Karachi in his teens. And it is there that his adult life unfolds: he discovers the joys of poetry, faces the trials of love and work, and spends his dreaming hours "sending cloud messages to other places," hoping, one day, to tell his own story.

A feeling of not quite belonging anywhere pursues Mehran as he travels to Italy, India, and Pakistan. But the relationships he forms—with wounded, passionate Marvi, volatile Marco, and the enigmatic Riccarda—and his power of recollection finally bring him some sense, however fleeting, of home.

Aamer Hussein was born in Karachi in 1955 and moved to London in his teens. He lectures at the University of Southampton and the Institute of English Studies and is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. His novella Another Gulmohar Tree was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize Europe and South Asia 2010.

Praise for Cairo Stories:

“A beautiful portrait of life in Egypt. I strongly recommend it.”—Alaa al Aswany, author of The Yacoubian Building

Claire and Gabrielle Sahli are sisters growing up in 1920s Cairo. Of Syrian descent, they occupy a precarious position in Egypt's increasingly nationalist wealthy classes. While others like them leave, the Sahlis cling on to their homes and livelihoods as Cairo is rocked by violent anti-British demonstrations and government crackdowns.

Anne-Marie Drosso is of Syrian/Italian descent and was born in Cairo in 1951. This is her first full-length novel. She lives in Monterey, California.

“One of the strangest and most enchanting works of fiction ever written.”—Alison Lurie

Miss M., a pretty young woman with a passion for shells, fossils, flints, butterflies, and stuffed animals, remains isolated from the rest of society due to her diminutive size. Forced to make her own way in the world after the death of her father, she finds herself treated as little more than an entertaining curiosity.

Walter de la Mare (1873–1956) was one of the leading poets and novelists of the twentieth century. First published in 1921, Memoirs of a Midget won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction.

“Altun offers us three delights for the price of one: a brilliantly edgy, witty thriller that rivals Highsmith; a metaphysical puzzle that Borges would be proud to call his own; and a tale of two assassins that conveys, better than any other novel I have read, the way that money talks in Istanbul.”—Maureen Freely

"A deft, zinging whodunnit which is also a metaphysical puzzle worthy of the Oulipo group. Altun’s prose has a dreamlike urgency; his novel is a major achievement."—John Ashbery

After the death of his overbearing mother, the privileged Arda reclines in his wealth, reflecting on his young life and on the life of his father, the famous mathematician Mürsel Ergenekon, who was murdered on Arda’s fourteenth birthday. While on the other side of the city, “your humble servant” Bedirhan has decided to pack in his ten-year career as an assassin.

Their two lives become intrinsically bound in this remarkable thriller that takes us through the streets of Istanbul. We learn that Bedirhan in fact killed Arda’s father, and that they share more in common than he or we could imagine.

Meanwhile, Selçuk Altun, a former family friend, is playing a deadly game, providing Arda with clues to track down his father’s killer.

Selçuk Altun was born in Artvin, Turkey, in 1950. He lives in Istanbul, and Songs My Mother Never Taught Me is his fourth novel to be published in Turkish. He is a retired banking executive and a bibliophile.

Egypt is the setting for this collection, but the stories are universal—whether it’s the girl whose mother no longer recognizes her, a young man who uses the changing political climate to avenge his despotic father, or the woman consumed by guilt for abandoning her children. The characters throughout the stories unveil the scents and sensations of Cairo, from the early fifties to the present day.

Anne-Marie Drosso was born in Cairo in 1951. In 1974 she moved to Canada, where she studied law and worked as an appeal commissioner. She now lives in London.

“A Central European classic to be discovered and relished.”—Eva Hoffman

“A stunning novel. Funny, nightmarish and jubilant.”—Libération

"Although it took almost 40 years for Metropole to be translated into English, the book holds up well. In the same way that Kafka becomes relevant again every time you renew your driver's license, Karinthy captures that enduring, horrifying and exhilarating state of being at the mercy of an unfamiliar land."—Jessa Crispin for NPR

“I don’t know when I’ve read a more perfect novel-a dynamically helpless hero (in the line of Kafka), and a gorgeous spiral of action, nothing spare, nothing wrong, inventive and without artifice.”—Michael Hoffman in TLS Books of the Year 2009

Budai finds himself in a strange city where he can’t understand a word anyone says. One claustrophobic day blurs into another as he desperately struggles to survive in this vastly overpopulated metropolis where there are as many languages as there are people.

Metropole is a suspenseful and haunting Hungarian classic, and a vision of hell unlike any previously imagined.

Ferenc Karinthy was born in Budapest in 1921. He was a translator and editor, as well as an award-winning novelist, playwright, and journalist.

Shortlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction 2010.

"Will take you to the height of reading pleasure."—Elias Khoury

Walid Dahman is going home. Returning to Gaza after nearly four decades in exile, he looks forward to reconnecting with the people and places he once left behind.

Boarding the flight from London, Walid's life intersects with that of Dana, an Israeli actress, on her way back to Tel Aviv.

As the night sky hurtles past, what each confides and conceals will expose the chasm between them in the land they both call home.

Born in Palestine in 1945, Raba'i al-Madhoun is one of the Arab world's rising literary stars.

“Literary Prozac.”—Cosmopolitan

“Eduardo Mendoza is one of contemporary Spain’s most important writers.”—The New York Times Book Review

“An accomplished literary novelist who knows how to entertain.”—Kirkus Reviews

A shape-shifting extraterrestrial named Gurb has assumed the form of Madonna and disappeared in Barcelona’s back streets. His hapless commander, desperately trying to find him, records the daily pleasures, dangers, and absurdities of our fragile world, while munching his way through enormous quantities of churros. No stone is left unturned in the search for his old pal Gurb.

Will Barcelona survive this alien invasion? Will the captain ever find his subordinate? Are there enough churros in Barcelona to satisfy his intergalactic appetite?

Eduardo Mendoza was born in 1943 in Barcelona. He spent some years in New York working as an interpreter for the United Nations before returning to his native city. His other novels include The Truth About the Savolta Case, The City of Marvels, and The Year of the Flood.

Praise for Songs My Mother Never Taught Me:

“A deft, zinging whodunnit which is also a metaphysical puzzle worthy of the Oulipo group. Altun’s prose has a dreamlike urgency; his novel is a major achievement.”—John Ashbery

“This intelligent thriller from Altun, his first to be published in the U.S., nicely evokes modern Istanbul. . . . The lean prose and deft pacing make this more than a routine revenge tale.’”—Publishers Weekly

Kemal’s friend mysteriously disappears, leaving him a generous allowance and the use of his large house.

He discovers that his new dwelling involves an inheritance of $1.3 million, and a Russian nobleman’s missing son. Kemal embarks on a missing person case that will bring chaos and romance to his life.

Clues lead him from Istanbul to Buenos Aires, Boston, and eventually Baltimore, where Kemal visits the Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum. There in the museum is a poster announcing the Nevar Foundation’s offer of $200,000 to the winner of a first novel competition.

Kemal buys paper and a pen. He has decided to enter the Nevar competition with his first mystery novel, called Many and Many a Year Ago.

Selçuk Altun was born in Artvin, Turkey, in 1950. Telegram published Songs My Mother Never Taught Me in 2008. He lives in Istanbul and is a retired banking executive and bibliophile.

Set in the near future, The Ice People imagines an ice age enveloping the Northern Hemisphere. It is Africa’s relative warmth that offers a last hope to northerly survivors. As relationships between men and women break down, the novel charts one man’s struggle to save his alienated son and bring him to the south and to salvation.

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

“A lovely, strange and very moving novel. The colours and shape develop as you read while the couple’s mutual understanding moves forward and upward over the years like two branches of blossom meeting at the top of the tree.”—Ruth Padel

Usman and Lydia meet in postwar London and fall in love. But as the years flit by, Usman feels a growing distance between them. When he realizes that he hasn’t noticed the buds of the gulmohar tree unfurl, he understands that he has lost sight of his love for his wife.

Aamer Hussein was born in Karachi in 1955 and moved to London in his teens. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

“Drawing on legend, history, memoir, literature, and film, Hussein’s stories are meant to be cupped in both hands and savored slowly.”—Guardian

In his fourth collection, Aamer Hussein charts the geographies of leave-taking and homecoming, the consolations and rivalries of friendship, the yearnings of adolescence, and maturity’s tentative acceptance of longing. Moving from Karachi to England, through India, Java, Italy, and Spain, these exquisite stories engage with the grand narratives of our time.

Aamer Hussein was born in Karachi and moved to London in 1970. He reviews regularly for The Independent and The Times Literary Supplement. He has held visiting posts at the University of Southampton and the University of London, and is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.