'A city so rich in trees it looks like a cloth of brocade spread out upon the land.'
Shamsaddin al-Dimashqi, geographer (1256-1327)
This was Gaza. A place of humanity and creativity, rich in culture and industry. A place now pulverised and devastated, its entire population displaced by a seemingly endless onslaught.
Today, as its heritage is being destroyed, Gaza's survivors preserve their culture through literature, music, stories and memories. Daybreak in Gaza is a record of that heritage, revealing an extraordinary place and people. Vignettes of artists, acrobats, doctors, students, shopkeepers and teachers across the generations offer stories of love, life, loss and survival. They display the wealth of Gaza's cultural landscape and the breadth of its history.
This remarkable book humanises the people dismissed as mere statistics and portrays lives full of joy and meaning. Daybreak in Gaza stands as a mark of resistance to the destruction, and as a testament to the people of Gaza.
Naim Qassem offers an insider's view of the workings of the party from its inception until now, providing a comprehensive guide to the mandate of one of the Middle East's major political forces.--Washington Report on Middle Eastern Affairs
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 introduction covering the 2006 war and the spring 2008 events in Beirut.
Naim Qassem was born in Lebanon in 1953. He holds degrees in chemistry and religious studies and taught chemistry for many years at college level. A founding member of Hizbullah in 1982 and the party's deputy secretary-general since 1991, he is the author of numerous books on political and religious issues.
It is now more than seventy years since the creation of the state of Israel, yet its origins and the British Empire's historic responsibility for Palestine remain little known. Confusion persists too as to the distinction between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. In Legacy of Empire, Gardner Thompson offers a clear-eyed review of political Zionism and Britain's role in shaping the history of Palestine and Israel.
Thompson explores why the British government adopted Zionism in the early twentieth century, issuing the Balfour Declaration in 1917 and then retaining it as the cornerstone of their rule in Palestine after the First World War. Despite evidence and warnings, over the next two decades Britain would facilitate the colonisation of Arab Palestine by Jewish immigrants, ultimately leading to a conflict which it could not contain. Britain's response was to propose the partition of an ungovernable land: a 'two-state solution' which - though endorsed by the United Nations after the Second World War - has so far brought into being neither two states nor a solution.
A highly readable and compelling account of Britain's rule in Palestine, Legacy of Empire is essential for those wishing to better understand the roots of this enduring conflict.
Deftly moving between Algeria and Paris, bestselling novelist Faïza Guène's Discretion compellingly evokes the realities of a first- and second-generation family as they carve out a future for themselves in France, finding one another as they go along.
Yamina Taleb is approaching her seventieth birthday. These days, she strives for a quiet life, grateful to the country that hosts her and her adored family. The closest she gets to drama is scooping 'revolutionary' bargains in the form of plastic kitchenware gadgets.
But Yamina's children feel differently. They don't always fit in in Paris, and it hurts. Omar wonders whether it's too late to change course as he watches the world pass him by from the driver's seat of his Uber. His sisters are tired of having to prove themselves, and their allegiance, to a place that is at once home, and not. When the whole family goes away on holiday - not to the motherland, but to a villa-with-pool rental near the Atlantic coast - the Talebs come to realise just how family
defines our sense of belonging.Alternating fragments from Yamina's Algerian past with those of her Paris present, Discretion spans the history of colonial conflict from the Second World War to the present day. A tribute to mothers everywhere, it is also the story of a modern French family feeling their way through the puzzle of their history - and finding one another as they go along.
A Map of Absence presents the finest poetry and prose by Palestinian writers over the last seventy years. Featuring writers in the diaspora and those living under occupation, these striking entries pay testament to one of the most pivotal events in modern history - the 1948 Nakba.
This unique, landmark anthology includes translated excerpts of works by major authors such as Mahmoud Darwish, Ghassan Kanafani and Fadwa Tuqan alongside those of emerging writers, published here in English for the first time. Depicting the varied aspects of Palestinian life both before and after 1948, their writings highlight the ongoing resonances of the Nakba.
An intimate companion for all lovers of world literature, A Map of Absence reveals the depth and breadth of Palestinian writing.
Egyptian cities and villages abound with an enormous wealth of khatt, or calligraphic script, ranging from casual scrawls and scribbles to elaborately-painted colourful murals. These historical and contemporary versions of urban lettering, varying in surface, medium and technique, adorn mosques, shop-fronts, houses, trucks, boats, schools, tuk tuks and walls. They are records of human existence, documenting expressions of hope, fears, dreams and anxieties.
Featuring beautiful, unique examples of these written expressions, Khatt is an extensive visual documentation of the found typography and calligraphy in Egypt, a calligraphy hub that possesses a rich tradition of education and production in the field. This timely volume records the traditional craftsmanship of hand-painted calligraphy, in decline because of the digitisation of the Arabic script.
Basma Hamdy is a research-based designer, author and educator. Currently Assistant Professor of Graphic Design at Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar, Hamdy earned an MFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art and a Post-Baccalaureate Certificate from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her publications include Walls of Freedom: Street Art of the Egyptian Revolution.
Noha Zayed is a photographer currently based in Cairo, Egypt. Zayed has exhibited in festivals across the Middle East. Her other creative endeavors include film and music projects such as a documentary on travel and education aired on Al Jazeera in 2017.
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 Bj rnson Prize, the International Nâzim Hikmet Poetry Award, and the Syria-Lebanon Best Poet Award.
Azerbaijani cuisine is one of the most ancient and varied in the world, rich with Eastern European and Western Asian influences.
Over one hundred mouth-watering recipes are included in this book: from pilafs with apricots, dates and plums, aubergine kebab and baked fish with walnuts to halva and sweet crescent pastries.
With stunning recipes and sumptuous photographs, The Azerbaijani Kitchen is a treat for food lovers and a wonderful introduction to this exotic and delicious cuisine.
Chef Tahir Amiraslanov is president of the National Culinary Association in Azerbaijan.
Leyla Rahmanova works for the Golden Books publishing house in Baku, Azerbaijani.
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.