Search results for ""Saqi Books""

Alfred White, a London park-keeper, rules his home with a mixture of ferocity and tenderness that has estranged his three children. But family ties are strong, and when Alfred collapses on duty one day, they rush to be with him. His daughter's partner, Elroy, a black social worker, is brought face to face with Alfred's younger son Dirk, who hates and fears all black people. The scene is set for violence, and Alfred's wife May is forced to choose between justice and kinship. This ground-breaking novel tackles the taboo subject of racial hatred, as it looks for the roots of violence within one British family.

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Yael Azoulay does the United Nations' dirty work. From the caves of Afghanistan and the slums of Baghdad to the world's corporate boardrooms, Yael's job is to broker the secret deals that grease the wheels of superpower diplomacy and big business. When a suspicious death at the UN headquarters in Manhattan is covered up, Yael decides that the ends no longer justify the means and she goes rogue. Events quickly spiral out of control as Yael is forced on the run in the streets of New York and Geneva. Hunted by the world's intelligence and law enforcement agencies, Yael must ultimately learn that salvation means not just saving other's lives but slaying her own inner demons. A gripping journey through the secret corridors of power.

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Across Palestine, from the Allenby Bridge and Ramallah, to Jerusalem and Gaza, Marcello Di Cintio has met with writers, poets, librarians, booksellers and readers, finding extraordinary stories in every corner. Stories of how revolutionary writing is smuggled from the Naqab Prison, and about what it is like to write with only two hours of electricity each day. Stories from the Gallery Cafe, whose opening three thousand creative intellectuals gathered to celebrate; and the lost generations of stories contained within the looted books that sit in Israel's National Library. Pay No Heed to the Rockets offers a window into the literary heritage of Palestine that transcends the narrow language of conflict, revealing a humanity often unreported. Paying homage to the memory of literary giants like Mahmoud Darwish and Ghassan Kanafani and the contemporary authors whom they continue to inspire, this evocative, lyrical journey shares both the anguish and inspiration of Palestine today.

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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. Abani vividly describes the characters that peopled this dark world, from prison inmates such as John James, tortured to death at the age of fourteen, to the general overseers. First published after his release from jail in 1991, Kalakuta Republic remains a paean to those who suffered and to the indomitable human spirit.

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1920s Cairo: singers were pressing hit records, dramatic troupes were springing up and cabarets were packed - a counterculture was on the rise. In bars, hash-dens and music halls, people of all backgrounds came together as a passionate group of artists captivated Egyptian society. Of these performers, Cairo's biggest stars were female, and they asserted themselves on the stage like never before. Two of the most famous troupes were run by women; Badia Masabni's dancehall became the hottest nightspot in town; pioneer of Egyptian cinema Aziza Amir made her stage debut; and legendary singer Oum Kalthoum first rose to fame. It is these women, who knew both the opportunities and prejudices that this world offered, who best reveal this cosmopolitan and raucous city's secrets. Midnight in Cairo tells the thrilling story of Egypt's interwar nightlife and entertainment industry through the lives of its pioneering women. Introducing an eccentric cast of characters, it brings to life a world of revolutionary ideas and provocative art - one which laid the foundations of Arab popular culture today. It is a story of modern Cairo as we have never heard it before.

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Rise celebrates the inspirational stories of 100 remarkable women of colour. From the entrepreneur with a homemade marmalade business who went on to found Women's World Banking, to the educator who built the first university in the world; and from the athlete who fled civil war on a sinking boat and then swam in the Olympics, to the first Black female astronaut, these trailblazers have risen above challenges to reach dizzying heights. These scientists, entertainers, sportswomen, artists and activists hail from more than forty countries. Past and present, famous and forgotten, they have worked both behind the scenes and under public scrutiny to make our world a better place. Featuring stunning portrait illustrations by noted artist Maliha Abidi, Rise reveals the creativity and courage of these pioneers, and is essential for all.

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WINNER OF THE T S ELIOT PRIZE 2021. The female body is a political space. C+nto enters the private lives of women from the butch counterculture, telling the inside story of the protests they led in the '90s to reclaim their bodies as their own - their difficult balance between survival and self-expression. History, magic, rebellion, party and sermon vibrate through Joelle Taylor's cantos to uncover these underground communities forged by women. Part-memoir and part-conjecture, Taylor explores sexuality and gender in poetry that is lyrical, expansive, imagistic, epic and intimate. C+nto is a love poem, a riot, a late night, and an honouring.

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Winner of the EBRD Literature Prize 2018. Istanbul is a city of a million cells, and every cell is an Istanbul unto itself.After a military coup, four prisoners - the doctor, Demirtay the student, Kamo the barber and Uncle Kuheylan - sit below the ancient streets of Istanbul awaiting their turn at the hands of their wardens. Between violent interrogations, the condemned share parables and riddles about their beloved city to pass the time. From their retelling of stories, both real and imagined, emerges a picture of a city that is many things to many different people. Their fears and laughter show us that there is as much hope and suffering in the city above as there is in the cells below. Istanbul, Istanbul is a poignant and uplifting novel about the power of human imagination in the face of adversity.

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Driven by famine from their home in the Rif, Mohamed's family walks to Tangiers in search of a better life. But things are no better there. Eight of Mohamed's siblings die of malnutrition and neglect, and one is killed by Mohamed's father in a fit of rage. On moving to another province Mohamed learns how to charm and steal, and discovers the joys of drugs, sex and alcohol. Proud, insolent and afraid of no-one, Mohamed returns to Tangiers, where he is caught up in the violence of the 1952 independence riots. During a short spell in a filthy Moroccan jail, a fellow inmate kindles Mohamed's life-altering love of literature. A cult classic, For Bread Alone is an astonishing tale of human resilience and an unflinching and searing portrait of the early life of one of the Arab world's most important and widely read authors.

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Who shot Kamar al-Dawla 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? Diary of a Country Prosecutor is an Egyptian comedy of errors. Partly autobiographical, it takes the form of a journal of a young public prosecutor posted to a village in rural Egypt. Imbued with the ideals of a European education, he encounters a world of poverty and backwardness where an imported legal system is both alien and incomprehensible.

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Jina Mahsa Amini’s death at the hands of Iran’s Morality Police on 16 September 2022 sparked widespread protests across the country. Women took to the streets, uncovering their hair, burning headscarves and chanting ‘Woman Life Freedom’ – ‘Zan Zendegi Azadi’ in Persian and ‘Jin Jîyan Azadî’ in Kurdish – in mass demonstrations. An explosion of creative resistance followed as art and photography shared online went viral and people around the world saw what was really going on in Iran. Woman Life Freedom captures this historic moment in artwork and first-person accounts. This striking collection goes behind the scenes at forbidden fashion shows; records the sound of dissent in Iran where it is illegal for women to sing unaccompanied in public; and walks the streets of Tehran with ‘The Smarties’ – Gen Z women who colour and show their hair in defiance of the authorities, despite the potentially devastating consequences. Extolling the power of art, writing and body politics – both female and queer – this collection is a universal rallying call and a celebration of the women the regime has tried and failed to silence. This is what protest looks like.

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Hizbullah Deputy Secretary-General Naim Qassem provides an unparalleled insider's view of the workings of this Shi'ite resistance group turned political party. Formed in 1982 in response to Israel's invasion of Lebanon, Hizbullah was instrumental in eventually forcing Israel to withdraw its troops in 2000, thus ending a twenty-two-year military occupation. In the summer war of 2006, Hizbullah proved to the world that it is much more than a political party - it is a force to be reckoned with. This updated paperback includes a new chapter covering the 2006 war and the spring 2008 events in Beirut.

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When Akuany and her brother are orphaned in a village raid, they're taken in by a young merchant Yaseen who promises to care for them, a vow that tethers him to Akuany through their adulthood. As revolution begins to brew, led by the self-proclaimed Mahdi, Sudan begins to prise itself from Ottoman rule, and everyone must choose a side. Yaseen feels beholden to stand against this false Mahdi, a decision that threatens to splinter his family. Meanwhile, Akuany moves through her young adulthood and across the country alone, sold and traded from house to house, with only Yaseen as her intermittent lifeline. Their struggle mirrors the increasingly bloody struggle for Sudan itself - for freedom, safety and the possibility of love. River Spirit illuminates a fraught and bloody reckoning with the history of a people caught in the crosshairs of imperialism. This is a powerful tale of corruption, coming of age and unshakeable devotion - to a cause, to one's faith and to the people who become family.

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Islam and Capitalism is a learned, engaged 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 characterised as instinctively hostile to capitalism. Maxime Rodinson looks at the facts, analysing economic texts with his customary common sense, to show that Muslims never had any trouble making money.

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Napoleon's invasion of Egypt in 1798 suddenly 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 totally 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, and the new reform movements in Egypt and the Fertile Crescent had incorporated into their programs the ideological premises and political institutions of European liberalism. Ibrahim Abu-Lughod's pioneering work traces the role of the Arab intelligentsia in increasing Arab awareness of Europe and in shaping visions of Arab political futures. First published in 1963, it was hugely influential in instigating a detailed study of the Arab-European encounter in the nineteenth century using Arabic sources.

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The Iraqi poet Nazik al-Malaika was one of the most important Arab poets of the twentieth century. A pioneer of free verse poetry, over the course of a four-decade career, she would publish prolifically and carved out a space for herself between old and new, tradition and innovation, the time-honoured and the iconoclastic. Revolt Against the Sun presents a selection of Nazik al-Malaika's poetry in English translation for the first time. Bringing together poems from each of her published collections, it traces al-Malaika's transformation from a lyrical Romantic poet in the 1940s to a fervently committed Arab nationalist in the 1970s and 1980s. The translations offer both an overview of her life and work, and an insight into the political and social realities in the Arab world in the decades following the Second World War. Featuring a comprehensive historical and critical introduction, this bilingual reader reveals how one woman transformed the landscape of modern Arabic literature and culture. It is a key resource for students and teachers of Arabic and world literature, as well as for readers interested in discovering an alternative narrative of modern Iraqi culture.

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The eating and preparation of food is at the heart of Sufi religious practices and beliefs, and the dishes - from preserved rose petals and snow halva, to baklava prepared with water in which oak ashes have been soaked overnight - illustrates this beautifully. Full of anecdotes, poetry from the great Sufi mystic, Mevlana, and delightful recipes.

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Fighting the Ottoman invaders in Constantinople in 1453, 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 Byzantine emperor and that in order to take possession of his fortune he must carry out his ancestor's last wishes. The professor embarks on a dangerous journey, taking him to the heart of a mystery of epic historical significance. The Sultan of Byzantium is a symbiosis of story and history and a homage to Byzantine civilisation.

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Tangier, 'the most extraordinary and mysterious city in the world', in the author's mind, was a haven for many Western writers in the early twentieth century. This book presents his recollections of his encounters in Tangier with Paul Bowles, Jean Genet and Tennessee Williams; offering a fresh insight into the lives of these cult figures.

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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 Mursel 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 begin to imagine. Meanwhile, Selcuk Altun, a former family friend, is playing a deadly game, providing Arda with clues to track down his father's killer...

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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" whips through our tortuous past with the deftness of a surgeon's scalpel. Jonah confronts a ship of Norwegian whalers; a medieval pilgrim points out the London Eye to his bored son on their way to Canterbury; Little Red Riding Hood gets drunk on cherry brandy with the wolf, and Bob Dylan loses his shadow. Death and destruction, cruelty to animals, boredom, overpopulation: enough is enough. A crowd gathers at the Vatican to protest against mortality, only to be distracted by the latest football scores ...A history unlike any other - at once sinister, alarming and breathlessly funny.

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Although the popular uprisings of 2011 were not driven by Islamist forces, it is the Islamist movements, and the Muslim Brotherhood in particular, that have filled the power vacuums that opened up with the collapse of the regimes of the region. How did they do it and how will they manage their new political role? In this authoritative analysis, Alison Pargeter follows the twists and turns of the Muslim Brotherhood as it battled through the years of oppression under authoritarian regimes to finally become a key and legitimate political actor. Including new chapters on the Brotherhood in the wake of the Arab Spring, this updated edition is the essential guide to understanding the forces shaping the Arab world today.

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In 1979, journalist Zuhair al-Jezairy fled Iraq and certain death after openly criticising Saddam'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 Arab and Westerners who were involved. 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 first-hand accounts of the looting of Baghdad, the destruction of government buildings, and indiscriminate bombings are a searing, personal and unique account of Iraq after Saddam Hussein.

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The Yezidis, an ancient enigmatic Kurdish mountain people, are considered one of the oldest ethnicities in the Middle East, and often derided as 'devil-worshippers'. Distinct from the majority Sunni Kurds, Yezidis' religion evolved through a fusion of Sufism with earlier religious beliefs indigenous to the region, including Zoroastrian, Jewish, Gnostic and Christian motifs. They attribute a prominent place to their protector, the Peacock Angel, traditionally identified with Satan by Muslims. Historically labelled as heretics and mercilessly persecuted, the Yezidis developed a unique culture and caste system. More recently, under Saddam Hussein, Yezidi culture underwent radical changes, with the forced resettlement into collective villages and geographic isolation reinforced by the political fallout from the Second Gulf War. Along with her enquiry into the meaning and manner of their practices, Spat takes note of the increasing demands of modernisation and the shifting balance of power in the region, and also observes the stirrings of inner strife in an otherwise tough, resilient community that has endured continuous attempts at eradication over centuries.

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Combining witty comment with meticulous research abounding in historical and cultural detail, Jezernik reveals how from the mid 16th to the late 20th century "The Balkans" have been perceived by west European travellers and experts, many of whom have seen it as part of Asia and sought accordingly to inform their contemporaries of its "exotic", "outlandish" and "primitive" ways. The rich source material includes citations from naturalists, geographers, historians and social scientists: from Joseph de Tournefort and Henry Blount via Karl Baedeker, William Gladstone and Paulina Irby, to Edith Durham, Rebecca West and Julia Kristeva. Exploring over 1000 first-hand reports and comparing narratives spanning almost five centuries, the author demonstrates how the project of observing other people in their environment mirrors the observers' own culture and environment. Thus the impressions passed down through the ages about the Balkans say more about Western Europe in most respects than about the lands and people in question.

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A 12-year-old boy returns from his school in Cairo to find his village torn by feud and fear. A corrupt official has ordered the peasants to irrigate their fields in five days, instead of the customary ten - a demand that threatens to disrupt the whole life of this small community. The local schoolmaster, Sheikh Hassouna, urges the villagers to rebel. But it takes many attempts - some disastrous, others comical and touching - before they join forces and stand against their oppressors. Sharqawi's novel, set in the 1930s, was first published in 1954, two years after the Egyptian revolution. An epic drama of great power, Egyptian Earth is a masterpiece of modern Arabic literature. It has been translated into many languages, including French and Russian, as well as being made into a popular film by the well-known Egyptian director Youssef Chahine.

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Afif Safieh served as Palestinian General Delegate in London, Washington and Moscow from 1990 to 2008. During this time, he met and interacted with the leading figures of our times: from Yasser Arafat to Tony Blair; to Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush, and Pope John Paul II. The Peace Process: From Breakthrough to Breakdown brings together Afif Safieh's articles, lectures and interviews from 1981, when he was a staff member in Yasser Arafat's Beirut office, to 2005, at the end of his mission in London, revealing the political and intellectual journey of one of Palestine's most skilled and distinguished diplomats. His writings, which centre on the Palestinian struggle for independence, are a testament to his vision and humanity and provide a unique map of Palestinian diplomacy over the last three decades.

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Daniel Brac goes to South America to restore a major painting. But he is also on a mission: he must redeem his life-long cowardice and hunt the war criminal who murdered his father. To forge his courage he seeks out Manku Yupanqui, the only hero never to have known fear. So begins Daniel's odyssey - an epic voyage across the primal landscape of politics and religion, culture and morality, spirituality and sexuality.

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An anthology of anecdotes, fables, stories and proverbs related and translated from the oral tradition of the Arab lands and from Persian and Arabic literature. Henry Cattan has selected from a number of oral and written sources evocative of Eastern wisdom and humour and featuring some of the most memorable of Arab folk characters. Most famous of all is Juha, the popular humourist from folk legend who is perhaps best known in the West as Mullah Nasreddin. Juha's stories have enriched an oral tradition which has for centuries been for the people of Levant a means of expressing through wit and humour their convictions about humanity, society and man's place in the world. The last section of the book features a handful of the 7000 proverbs which are still used today to adorn language and conversation.

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Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Arab world has undergone a series of radical transformations. One of the most significant is the resurgence of activist and puritanical forms of religion presenting as viable alternatives to existing social, cultural and political practices. The rise in sectarianism and violence in the name of religion has left scholars searching for adequate conceptual tools that might generate a clearer insight into these interconnected conflicts. In Striking from the Margins, leading authorities in their field propose new analytical frameworks to facilitate greater understanding of the fragmentation and devolution of the state in the Arab world. Challenging the revival of well-worn theories in cultural and post-colonial studies, they provide novel contributions on issues ranging from military formations, political violence in urban and rural settings, trans-regional war economies, the crystallisation of sect-based authorities and the restructuring of tribal networks. Placing much-needed emphasis on the re-emergence of religion, this timely and vital volume offers a new, critical approach to the study of the volatile and evolving cultural, social and political landscapes of the Middle East.

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Wild and strange stories have circulated about the female body since antiquity. While legends of poisoned hymens and fanged vaginas circulated, the first female figure Mother Earth was recreated as a crooked rib. Ranging from the absurd to the empowering, these myths not only survive but continue to wield power today. The Shrinking Goddess brings together myths about the female form and traces the subsequent male efforts to tame' it. Mineke Schipper examines how women's bodies have been represented since records began the first Venus and vulva figures date to 40,000 BCE and around the world. Drawing together the vast reservoir of myths, proverbs, art, science and scripture that shape how women are seen in the present day, Schipper reclaims the female body as a source of power. Readers of Angela Davis, Mary Beard, Audre Lorde, Betty Friedan and Germaine Greer will want to read this book.

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How do you become a writer, and why? Maggie Gee's journey starts a long way from the literary world in a small family in post-war Britain,. 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.

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In Buddhist myth, those that have desired too much in life may be reborn as 'hungry ghosts' - spirits with a stomach so large they can never be full.Six-year-old Shivan is boarded up in his grandmother s mansion in Sri Lanka. While civil unrest brews outside, Shivan is fighting small battles of his own: the matriarch of his mysterious family wants to groom him as heir to her vast and corrupt empire. Shivan stands helpless as she sidelines his mother and sister and evicts vulnerable families from their homes. Unwilling to carry the burden of her expectations, Shivan escapes to the West. Yet ghosts will follow you across continents. As the years pass, and his sexuality gradually comes to light, events spiral out of control and threaten to separate Shivan from his family once and for all.The Hungry Ghosts is an exquisite tale of differences and how they can tear apart both a country and the heart not just once, but many times, until the ghosts are freed.

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In his early teens, Mehran moves from Karachi, the rainless place of his childhood to London, the rainy city his father has always loved. At the age of twenty-three, he leaves his job in a bank to return to university, where he meets the charismatic Riccarda - nearly ten years older than him, vivacious and enigmatic. Their relationship, which shades from friendship into love, will last a lifetime. In his thirties, when life doesn't quite go according to plan, Mehran becomes involved with Marvi, passionate, displaced and damaged, and has to choose between the demands of a relationship and the solitude that his burgeoning poetic imagination demands.

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SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2002 ORANGE PRIZE FOR FICTION Alfred White, a London park-keeper, rules his home with a mixture of ferocity and tenderness that has estranged his three children. But family ties are strong, and when Alfred collapses on duty one day, they rush to be with him. His daughter's partner, Elroy, a black social-worker, is brought face to face with Alfred's younger son Dirk, who hates and fears all black people. The scene is set for violence, and Alfred's wife May is forced to choose between justice and kinship. This ground-breaking novel tackles the taboo subject of racial hatred, as it looks for the roots of violence within one British family.

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Seven years after the Arab uprisings, the social situation has deteriorated across the Middle East and North Africa. Political, economic and personal insecurities have expanded while income from oil declined and tourist revenues have collapsed due to political instability. Against a backdrop of escalating armed conflicts and disintegrating state structures, many have been forced from their homes, creating millions of internally displaced persons and refugees. Young people are often the ones hit hardest by the turmoil. How do they cope with these ongoing uncertainties, and what drives them to pursue their own dreams in spite of these hardships? In this landmark volume, an international interdisciplinary team of researchers assess a survey of 9,000 sixteen- to thirty-year-olds from Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, Syria, Tunisia and Yemen, resulting in the most comprehensive, in-depth study of young people in the MENA region to date. Given how rapidly events have moved in the Middle East and North Africa, the findings are in many regards unexpected.

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In this collection of essays, Gilbert Achcar examines the controversial relationship of Marxism to religion, to Orientalism and its critique by Edward Said, and to the concept of cosmopolitanism. A compelling range of issues is discussed within these pages, including a comparative assessment of Christian liberation theology and Islamic fundamentalism; "Orientalism in reverse", which can take the form of an apology for Islamic fundamentalism; the evolution of Marx's appraisal of non-Western societies; and the vagaries of "cosmopolitanism" up to our present era of globalisation. Erudite and incisive, these essays provide a major contribution to the critical discussion of Marxism, Orientalism and cosmopolitanism, and illuminate the relationships between all three.

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Chaouki Chamoun is one of the Middle East's most renowned artists. Born in Sariine Tahta, the Bekaa Valley of Lebanon in 1942, he studied architectural drawing at night school, then joined the Lebanese University where he won art scholarships to Syracuse University and later to New York University. Through more than thirty oneman shows and over fifty group exhibitions, his work has continuously evolved in search of a new aesthetic vocabulary. With over 300 plates to illustrate his story, Chamoun leads us through his own artistic journey, showing how the schools of the modern era have informed his technique and imagery, and how he has been motivated and inspired as much by the tiniest details of a pebble as by the political turmoil visited on his homeland. Going beyond a record of his life and art, this book delves into what drives an artist to create.

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In art and literature, walls are frequently used as powerful symbols of division. For the people of Palestine, however, the wall that cuts deeply into their land and society is all too real, snaking through over 700 kilometres of the West Bank. It throttles Palestinians, seals off Israelis, and all but guarantees perpetual ignorance, fear and rage on both sides. Keep Your Eye on the Wall brings together seven award-winning artist-photographers and four essayists, all responding to the Wall in images or words, specially commissioned for this book. The photographers present unique perspectives, whether documenting the journey of labourers across the barrier, the desolation of abandoned checkpoints or the tattered posters of "martyrs" on a wall in Gaza. Informed, critical and powerful, the photographs constitute, in the words of French philosopher of art Georges Didi-Huberman, 'a space for struggle'. The book fetaures photography from Taysir Batniji, Raed Bawayah, Rula Halawani, Noel Jabbour, Raeda Saadeh, Steve Sabella and Kai Wiedenhofer; text from Malu Halasa, Yael Lerer, Christine Leuenberger and Adania Shibli and a foreword from Raja Shehadeh.

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Arabic Literature: Postmodern Perspectives introduces the work of twenty-nine pivotal authors from the Arab world writing in Arabic, English, French and Hebrew. Organised around the central themes of memory, place and gender, each of which is discussed in an introductory essay, the volume provides a critical framework for Arab writing, locating it alongside contemporary world literature. The contributors maintain that Arabic literature reflects the Western postmodern condition without denying its own traditions. As such, Arabic Literature: Postmodern Perspectives paves the way for an important cultural dialogue between East and West. This collection is ideal for students of Arabic and comparative literature and equally of interest to general readers. Authors covered include Rabih Alameddine, Hoda Barakat, Tahar Ben Jelloun, Mahmoud Darwish, Assia Djebar and Elias Khoury. It provides an extensive list of further reading to complement the work.

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This volume offers a comprehensive discussion of the contemporary debates within political Islam, providing an in-depth analysis of the specific movements, countries and regions in the Arab world and Israel. The contributors contend that the evolution of Islamic movements is contextual rather than ideological. Therefore, Islamic movements are best understood individually within their own historical, socio-political and cultural setting. Political Islam is an essential reference for academics, researchers and the media, as well as general readers with an interest in Islamic political debates. Contributors include Abdullah Baabood, Youcef Bouandel, Abdelwahab El-Affendi, Kamal Helbawy, Roel Meijer, Ibrahim Moussawi, Tariq Ramadan, Tilde Rosmer, Murad Batal al-Shishani, Sara Silvestri and Camille Tawil.

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In this riveting and revealing autobiography, newspaper editor Abdel Bari Atwan recounts with humour and honesty his many extraordinary encounters, including tea with Margaret Thatcher, his weekend with Osama bin Laden, intimate meetings with Yasser Arafat, and the row between Colonel Gaddafi and the Shah of Iran that earned him his first journalistic break.

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More than two decades after their parents rose up against the excesses of the Shah, increasing numbers of young Iranians are risking jail for things their counterparts in the West take for granted: wearing makeup, slow dancing at parties, holding hands with members of the opposite sex. Arrests of youngsters often take place at parties raided by hardline religious paramilitaries of roughly their own age, brandishing AK-47s. And every day anxious parents queue at the courthouse to bail out their children, who - in furious defiance of Ayatollah Khomeini's brand of sombre religiosity - have been detained for 'moral crimes'. Kaveh Basmenji, who spent his own youth amidst the turbulence of the Islamic Revolution, argues that Iran's youth are in near-open revolt for want of greater personal freedom, in furious defiance of the mullahs and their brand of sombre religiousity. Through candid interviews with young people, and in a careful assessment of Iran today (including a special chapter on the implications of the recent election to the presidency of hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad), Basmenji gets to the heart of the matter: what do Iran's youth want, and how far are their elders prepared to accommodate them?

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"The people want ...": the first half of slogans chanted by millions of Arab protesters in 2011 revealed a long-suppressed craving for democracy. But huge social and economic problems were also laid bare by their demands. In this landmark work, noted Middle East analyst Gilbert Achcar assesses the roots and dynamics of the Arab uprisings, and analyses the specific socio-economic features that hinder the region's development. Achcar also sheds light on the nature and role of the movements that use Islam as a political banner and the oil monarchies that sponsor them. With incisive and invaluable insight, Achcar outlines the requirements for a lasting solution to the social crisis and the contours of a progressive political alternative. What we have witnessed to date is only the beginning of a revolutionary process that is likely to extend for many more years to come.

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'Makiya was Baghdad and Baghdad was Makiya.' These words sum up the life of one of the Middle East's most famous architects. Mohamed Makiya's career spanned seven decades and included projects in more than ten countries. He was a master of incorporating traditional and classical styles into modern architecture. For Makiya, the continuity of tradition as a 'living dimension' was the justification for his work. Makiya was revered as a teacher of architecture in Iraq, where he set up the first Department of Architecture at Baghdad University in 1959. Makiya was also a promoter of Iraqi art, which he displayed at his Kufa Gallery in London that was set up to build a bridge between the East and the West. This compelling biography reveals the life of a visionary who achieved remarkable feats in Iraq and whose philosophy and humanity crossed all borders and cultures.

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Osama bin Laden is dead but al-Qa'ida remains the CIA's 'number one threat'. With branches in strategic hotspots from Yemen and Somalia to North Africa and an increasing influence among 'home grown jihadis' in the West, journalist and al-Qa'ida expert Abdel Bari Atwan investigates how the organisation has survived all attempts to destroy it. Al-Qa'ida after bin Laden has expanded its reach by cementing new alliances and exploiting the opportunities regional turmoil affords. The Arab Spring has opened new battlegrounds for jihadists, particularly in Libya, the Sahel, Syria and Egypt. As the extremist zeal for a global caliphate shows no sign of abating, Atwan profiles the next generation of foot soldiers and leaders and explores the new methods they embrace in the pursuit of jihad in a digital age.

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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 centre of these Shia worlds, but to what extent can we speak of an 'Iranian model' that these groups follow? This volume presents the Shi'a worlds in all their complexities and explores the tenuous relations between these groups and Iran. It also sheds light on little-known communities such as the Ironi Shi'a of Uzbekistan, and refines our understanding of groups studied more extensively like the Shia's in Iraq. Published in association with the Institut Francais du Proche-Orient.

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