Middle Eastern Books

The Yacoubian Building: A Novel

Alaa Al Aswany

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 48 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

The World of Cairo 3 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

Reading literature about a particular city gives you insight into the mores and character of that community. This is true of Alaa Al Aswany's novel from 2002, The Yacoubian Building (ImaratYa'qubyan). I found the novel both well written and structured. Using the title building as his center Aswany portrays a diverse group of contemporary Cairenes to demonstrate the experience of living in the world of Egypt today. The author presents the issues of political corruption, class conflict and the "science" of love in a believable narrative; however, I found his portrayal of homosexuality less effective: sensitive at times but ultimately concluding with a stereotypically brutal end for the spurned lover. The difficulties of living in this society are highlighted as the novel moves smoothly from episode to episode building toward a climax that, while somewhat melodramatic, brings the story to an effective conclusion. Overall the complex narrative and view of the city of Cairo made this an engaging and satisfying read.

Editorial Review:

This controversial bestselling novel in the Arab world reveals the political corruption, sexual repression, religious extremism, and modern hopes of Egypt today.

All manner of flawed and fragile humanity reside in the Yacoubian Building, a once-elegant temple of Art Deco splendor now slowly decaying in the smog and bustle of downtown Cairo: a fading aristocrat and self-proclaimed "scientist of women"; a sultry, voluptuous siren; a devout young student, feeling the irresistible pull toward fundamentalism; a newspaper editor helplessly in love with a policeman; a corrupt and corpulent politician, twisting the Koran to justify his desires.

These disparate lives careen toward an explosive conclusion in Alaa Al Aswany's remarkable international bestseller. Teeming with frank sexuality and heartfelt compassion, this book is an important window on to the experience of loss and love in the Arab world.

Essential Rumi

Coleman Barks

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 69 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

this is a transcendence, not a 'translation' 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

don't get hung up on the hang ups of scholars and other strait-jacket types. this stuff is rumi translated, not literally, but soulfully. and that method usually fails.

not here.

Should Own This 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful.

There are certain books everybody should own and keep in their personal library and this is one of them. This book speaks to you in different times of your life. Sometimes you get one poem and not another and then later the other poem will come alive for you. I love Rumi's work and have loved it before it became fashionable.

Real Men Read Rumi 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful.

Real men drink beer from bottles, stand by their buddies in bar fights, and read Rumi (though would not brag about it).
This is probably the best of the collection and when my hormones are raging, reading Rumi instantly calms and brings me back to my senses. Not a big art lover, but if books are art, this is a Mona Lisa.

Editorial Review:

From the premier interpreter of Rumi comes the first definitive one-volume collection of the enduringly popular spiritual poetry by the extraordinary thirteenth-century Sufi mystic.

Snow

Orhan Pamuk

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 135 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Snow lacks imagination and is utterly BORING 1 out of 5 stars.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful.

I'm half way through the book reading it English (I'm Czech myself though). And I must say that Pamuk is utterly BORING BORING BORING, self-righteous, snobbish, and totally lacking any imagination. We're just reading his accurate, detailed notes that he scribbled down somewhere on his knee after rushing to the cafe (similarly to his character Ka) so that he didn't forget how the atmosphere outside felt and how the streets looked like.

His recurring imags of snow is described in such a banal way... He's very incosistent in his writing...and his story is utterly unbelievable. In the beginning Ka hates German language and states that he never learned it. 200 pages later he makes up a story about being in the German reporter's house where they were so kind and spoke Enlish to him anytime he couldn't understand German. Ka is having a conversation with Ipek in a cafe...she tells him - look there's a director of the education institute sitting over there. No mention of anyone else sitting with him at the table. After a while Ka sees a man suddenly rising from his chair and pointing a gun at the director, mumbling something and shooting him. The next chapter that follows is called The First and Last Conversation between the Murderer and his Victim and 11 pages (!) of a dialogue follow! (The whole time the guy is pointing a gun at him and of course no one in the cafe notices this).

Pamuk simply cannot write and his characters are completely flat. This is my first novel by him and I'm still hoping it gets better towards the end, I hate to put down books unfinished, but I must say it is hard not to with this one. I was curious since Pamuk won the Nobel Prize but I keep wondering why??? Just because a writer writes political fiction doesn't mean he's a good writer! His politics and proclamations..rather a several confused manifestos which this book is turning into simply are not good enough for a literature masterpiece (which is what Nobel prize winners are meant to be writing in the first place right?)

Snow just leaves you untouched and cold.

Editorial Review:

Dread, yearning, identity, intrigue, the lethal chemistry between secular doubt and Islamic fanaticism–these are the elements that Orhan Pamuk anneals in this masterful, disquieting novel. An exiled poet named Ka returns to Turkey and travels to the forlorn city of Kars. His ostensible purpose is to report on a wave of suicides among religious girls forbidden to wear their head-scarves. But Ka is also drawn by his memories of the radiant Ipek, now recently divorced.
Amid blanketing snowfall and universal suspicion, Ka finds himself pursued by figures ranging from Ipek’s ex-husband to a charismatic terrorist. A lost gift returns with ecstatic suddenness. A theatrical evening climaxes in a massacre. And finding god may be the prelude to losing everything else. Touching, slyly comic, and humming with cerebral suspense, Snow is of immense relevance to our present moment.

The Gift

Hafiz

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 75 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

An extraordinary new translation of the world-renowned mystic poet Hafiz.

More than any other Persian poet--even Rumi--Hafiz expanded the mystical, healing dimensions of poetry. Because his poems were often ecstatic love songs from God to his beloved world, many have called Hafiz the "Invisible Tongue." Indeed, Daniel Ladinsky, the accomplished translator of this volume, has said that his work with Hafiz is an attempt to do the impossible: to translate Light into words--to make the Luminous Resonance of God tangible to our finite senses.

With this stunning collection of 250 of Hafiz's most intimate poems, Ladinsky has succeeded brilliantly in translating the essence of one of Islam's greatest poetic and religious voices. Each line of The Gift imparts the wonderful qualities of this master Sufi poet and spiritual teacher: encouragement, an audacious love that touches lives, profound knowledge, generosity, and a sweet, playful genius unparalleled in world literature.

My Name Is Red

Orhan Pamuk

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Total reviews: 126 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

From one of the most important and acclaimed writers at work today, a thrilling new novel—part murder mystery, part love story—set amid the perils of religious repression in sixteenth-century Istanbul.

When the Sultan commissions a great book to celebrate his royal self and his extensive dominion, he directs Enishte Effendi to assemble a cadre of the most acclaimed artists in the land. Their task: to illuminate the work in the European style. But because figurative art can be deemed an affront to Islam, this commission is a dangerous proposition indeed, and no one in the elite circle can know the full scope or nature of the project.
Panic erupts when one of the chosen miniaturists disappears, and the Sultan demands answers within three days. The only clue to the mystery—or crime?—lies in the half-finished illuminations themselves. Has an avenging angel discovered the blasphemous work? Or is a jealous contender for the hand of Enishte’s ravishing daughter, the incomparable Shekure, somehow to blame?

Orhan Pamuk’s My Name Is Red is at once a fantasy and a philosophical puzzle, a kaleidoscopic journey to the intersection of art, religion, love, sex, and power.

Istanbul: Memories and the City

Orhan Pamuk

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 45 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

neo-nostalgia 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I remember the Boston of my childhood, though I remember Marblehead (a small town to the north) much better because I actually lived there. The two places had certain sights, sounds, smells, and "feelings" that, for the most part, have vanished like a morning fog off the Atlantic. But anchoring all those sensory aspects of the places was history, a giant kaleidescope of shifting people, institutions and events that created the then present, that created the new present, and will create the next present. I can't imagine Boston or Marblehead without that history.

Orhan Pamuk chose to write his great love for his city in a strange form. He weaves himself and his personal history into the picture, but completely avoids any historical details. I wonder whom he wrote for ? If for that "western audience" he refers to so often, there is not enough history to make sense of why Istanbul became such a melancholic, declined, fallen, poor, neglected place (at least he says it was). Fires and accidents, rain and snow, the hiss of tires slipping on old cobblestone alleys in a city that once ruled a big part of the world. If he wrote for a Turkish audience, his style of describing his family and his personal behavior would probably turn them off, along with his emphasis on Turkish cultural poverty. Maybe he wanted to "send a message" to those who insist too much on "Turkishness", by mentioning the now-mostly-disappeared non-Muslim minorities quite often. Maybe, but I conclude that he wrote it for himself---full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes to come. Pamuk writes of western painters and travellers and their views of the city in the 19th century and how they influenced him. He also writes of Turkish authors and how they viewed the city, though I have never seen any of their work in translation (meaning I have no idea how they would resonate with me). I liked this gambit, though I knew nothing about those Turkish writers. What I liked best is how he describes the city itself, how he walked around it as a child and a youth, how he steeped himself in the decay of the old Ottoman heritage before all the old mansions burned, before concrete apartment blocks sprang up like toadstools to sweep away the sad wooden houses that had seen better days. I loved the chapter on smoke from the funnels of steamships in the Bosphorus, and above all I liked the dozens of black and white photos of bygone days that fill the pages. It's a world class essay of nostalgia, but done in a very new way.

It's an interesting way to describe a city and write the first part of an autobiography. It's not a travelogue. There's not a single map---as if all the readers would know the geography of Istanbul. This is not Istanbul for visitors, this is Istanbul for those who loved it (who could AFFORD to love it) back in the Fifties and Sixties, when it had not been inundated in a huge tide of immigrants or refugees from the countryside and abroad, when Turkey was a poor, slow country. I saw it, once, briefly then, when Pamuk was an eleven year old kid. The dynamic, vital, amazing city of 2008 bears little resemblance to that other Istanbul. I understand why he wrote the book; I know a little of what is lost. To know that, you couldn't find a better book than this.

Editorial Review:

A shimmering evocation, by turns intimate and panoramic, of one of the world’s great cities, by its foremost writer. Orhan Pamuk was born in Istanbul and still lives in the family apartment building where his mother first held him in her arms. His portrait of his city is thus also a self-portrait, refracted by memory and the melancholy–or hüzün– that all Istanbullus share: the sadness that comes of living amid the ruins of a lost empire.

With cinematic fluidity, Pamuk moves from his glamorous, unhappy parents to the gorgeous, decrepit mansions overlooking the Bosphorus; from the dawning of his self-consciousness to the writers and painters–both Turkish and foreign–who would shape his consciousness of his city. Like Joyce’s Dublin and Borges’ Buenos Aires, Pamuk’s Istanbul is a triumphant encounter of place and sensibility, beautifully written and immensely moving.

Arabian Nights

Husain Haddawy

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 33 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

So far very good, not for kids though 4 out of 5 stars.
6 of 10 people found this review helpful.

I have been reading this to my 8 yr old and changing or leaving out the inappropriate parts. She loves to hear it, and with the cliff hangers she is always asking for another chapter.

Excellent Translation 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 4 people found this review helpful.

Excellent translation, from the oldest known manuscript of the tales. True to the original, it captures not just the letter, but the spirit of the text. Clearly, Haddawy is a talented writer on his own accord.

A very good place to discover Arab culture as well.

Justified New Translation 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

Not only do the tales read very, very well -- in good, elegant English -- but also the author does a great job at explaining why a new translation is needed. He makes his case in a detailed, very informative intro, which compares different translations of The Arabian Nights. Delightful.

Editorial Review:

Working from the definitive edition established by Muhsin Mahdi (based on the 14th century Syrian manuscript), this is a translation of "The Arabian Nights". It contains stories, of Arabic and Persian origin, which weave magic into the fabric of everday life, mixing flamboyance, pathos and humour.

Girls of Riyadh: A Novel

Rajaa Alsanea

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 38 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

A bold new voice from Saudi Arabia spins a fascinating tale of four young women attempting to navigate the narrow straits between love, desire, fulfillment, and Islamic tradition

In her debut novel Rajaa Alsanea reveals the social, romantic, and sexual tribulations of four young women from the elite classes of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Originally released in Arabic in 2005, it was immediately banned in Saudi Arabia because of the controversial and inflammatory content, while black-market copies of the novel were widely circulated. The daring originality of Girls of Riyadh continues to create a firestorm all over the Arab world, and the excitement has spread far beyond the Middle East-to date, rights to this novel have already been sold in eleven countries.

The novel unfolds as every week after Friday prayers, the anonymous narrator sends an e-mail to the female subscribers of her online chat group. In fifty such e-mails over the course of a year, we witness the tragicomic reality of four university students-Qamra, Michelle, Sadim, and Lamis-negotiating their love lives, their professional success, and their rebellions, large and small, against their cultural traditions. The world these women inhabit is a modern one that contains "Sex and the City," dating, and sneaking out of their parents' houses, and this affluent, contemporary existence causes the girls to collide endlessly with the ancient customs of their society. The never-ending cultural conflicts underscore the tumult of being an educated modern woman growing up in the twenty-first century amid a culture firmly rooted in an ancient way of life.

While this novel offers a distinctly Arab voice, it also represents the mongrel culture and language of a globalized world, reflecting the way in which the Arab world is being changed by new economic and political realities. Riyadh is the larger setting of the novel, but the characters travel all over the world shedding traditional garb as they literally and figuratively cross over into Western society. These women understand the Western worldview and experiment with reconciling pieces of it with their own. But this groundbreaking novel might be the very first that opens up their world to us-their culture, their struggles, their frustrations, their hopes, and their beliefs. With Girls of Riyadh, Rajaa Alsanea gives us a rare and unforgettable insight into the complicated lives of these young Saudi women whose amazing stories are unfolding in a culture so very different from our own.

Palace Walk (Cairo Trilogy)

Naguib Mahfouz

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 68 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Mahfouz Rewards Patience 5 out of 5 stars.
6 of 6 people found this review helpful.

Naguib Mahfouz, the only Arabic language writer ever to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, begins Palace Walk with Amina, the devout and devoted Muslim wife of al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad patiently waiting for her husband to return home from another long night of drinking, music, and carousing with his male friends and pursuing illicit sexual relations in Cairo's clubs and cafes. Mahfouz thus immediately establishes Amina's willing and absolute subservience to her husband. Mahfouz takes the next several chapters to develop al-Sayyid Ahmad's position as the unquestioned head of a family of two daughters, Khadija and Aisha, and three sons, Yasin an adult son from a prior marriage, Fahmy a law student, and young Kamal.

A central theme of the book is the absolute obedience, love, devotion, and fear of each member toward al-Sayyid Ahmad. The father is a towering figure who dominates their lives. They seem only to live and breathe in his absence. Al-Sayyid Ahmad insists upon a strict familial discipline and obedience that strikes even his close friends as extreme. The women in particular are subjected to isolation so extreme as to prohibit even a trip to a local mosque. Yet, as Mahfouz languorously unwinds his tale it becomes entirely clear that the family's devotion to him is sincerely heartfelt.

At the same time, as the reader has already learned, al-Sayyid Ahmad retains to himself the right to live a virtual double-life. He goes out on the town for wine, women, and song every single night without fail (the cliché fits al-Sayyid Ahmad too well to abjure). He even `officially' allows himself these indulgences . The family remains almost entirely ignorant of these activities, except for his wife Amina who knows only about the wine and song. With this juxtaposition of al-Sayyid Ahmad's guiltless pleasures with his strict demands on his family and their abject obedience, Mahfouz patiently builds to a thunderously powerful sensation when al-Sayyid Ahmad's pronounces his stunning punishment upon his wife for her guilty, secretive, and accidentally disastrous trip to the Mosque of Sayyidna al-Husayn.

While Al-Sayyid Ahmad often dominates the pages of this novel much like he dominates his family, Mahfouz nonetheless manages to patiently develop each family member's individual story. Khadija is the homely strong-willed older daughter with an incisive mind and a cutting tongue while Aisha is the passive, but beautiful and sought-after younger daughter. Yasin has inherited his father's taste for the forbidden pleasures, but not his discipline. Fahmy is the serious law student and secretly active nationalist. Kamal is a young boy whose poignant love for his family is so palpable and his understanding of the world so undeveloped that the reader desires nothing more than for Mahfouz to shield him from harsh reality. The wife and mother Amina remains largely an enigma perhaps because she has entirely submerged her sense of self into her husband.

About two-thirds of the way into the book, the Egyptian Revolution of 1919 breaks out against the British occupation and draws the family into its vortex. Much of the final third of the book is taken up with the family's interactions with the British occupiers. The revolution provides an important historical background and Mahfouz masterfully recreates the sounds, sights, smells, and tastes of Cairo's streets, but his greatest triumph is the creation of the complete life of this urban yet intensely Islamic and Egyptian family, a family that is perhaps remarkable in some ways, but well within society's accepted bounds.

Take the time to savor Palace Walk. Mahfouz rewards the persistent reader by patiently building the remarkable depth and completeness of his characters. Once the last page is turned, the reader can rest secure in the knowledge that Palace Walk is only the first book in Mahfouz's great Cairo Trilogy. Highest recommendation.

Editorial Review:

Volume I of the masterful Cairo Trilogy. A national best-seller in both hardcover and paperback, it introduces the engrossing saga of a Muslim family in Cairo during Egypt's occupation by British forces in the early 1900s.

The Cairo Trilogy: Palace Walk, Palace of Desire, Sugar Street (Everyman's Library)

Naguib Mahfouz

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 23 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)

Naguib Mahfouz’s magnificent epic trilogy of colonial Egypt appears here in one volume for the first time. The Nobel Prize—winning writer’s masterwork is the engrossing story of a Muslim family in Cairo during Britain’s occupation of Egypt in the early decades of the twentieth century.

The novels of The Cairo Trilogy trace three generations of the family of tyrannical patriarch Al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad, who rules his household with a strict hand while living a secret life of self-indulgence. Palace Walk introduces us to his gentle, oppressed wife, Amina, his cloistered daughters, Aisha and Khadija, and his three sons–the tragic and idealistic Fahmy, the dissolute hedonist Yasin, and the soul-searching intellectual Kamal. Al-Sayyid Ahmad’s rebellious children struggle to move beyond his domination in Palace of Desire, as the world around them opens to the currents of modernity and political and domestic turmoil brought by the 1920s. Sugar Street brings Mahfouz’s vivid tapestry of an evolving Egypt to a dramatic climax as the aging patriarch sees one grandson become a Communist, one a Muslim fundamentalist, and one the lover of a powerful politician.

Throughout the trilogy, the family’s trials mirror those of their turbulent country during the years spanning the two World Wars, as change comes to a society that has resisted it for centuries. Filled with compelling drama, earthy humor, and remarkable insight, The Cairo Trilogy is the achievement of a master storyteller.