Blogs in February 2020

Salt Houses 19th February 2020

“Reading Salt Houses is like having your coffee grounds read: cosmic, foreboding and titillating all at once. In this magnificent debut, Alyan’s powerful and poetic voice guides us into the dark recesses of history and leads us right up...

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Disinherited 19th February 2020

In this sequel to Ibrahim Fawal’s critically acclaimed On the Hills of God (winner of the PEN Oakland Award), the young Palestinian Yousif Safi searches throughout Jordan for Salwa, his bride, from whom he was separated during their forced...

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The Watermelon Boys 15th February 2020

It is the winter of 1915 and Iraq has been engulfed by the First World War. Hungry for independence from Ottoman rule, Ahmad leaves his peaceful family life on the banks of the Tigris to join the British-led revolt....

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Baghdad Noir 15th February 2020

From ‘I Killed Her Because I Loved Her’ by Muhsin al-Ramli: The neighbourhood, timeless with its narrow, smelly lanes, seemed to have been forgotten since it came into being with the foundation of Baghdad in Abbasid times. The streets...

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The Beekeeper of Sinjar: Rescuing the Stolen Women of Iraq 15th February 2020

In The Beekeeper of Sinjar, the acclaimed poet and journalist Dunya Mikhail tells the harrowing stories of women from across Iraq who have managed to escape the clutches of ISIS. Since 2014, ISIS has been persecuting the Yazidi people,...

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