Blogs in February 2020

The Journey of Little Gandhi 22nd February 2020

From the author of Gate of the Sun and “one of the most innovative novelists in the Arab World” (The Washington Post Book World) comes the many-layered story of Little Gandhi, or Abd Al-Karim, a shoe shine in a...

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The Bullet Collection 22nd February 2020

Marianna watches her older sister Alaine collect the detritus of war from around Beirut–bullets, shrapnel, grenades, a gas mask. These objects, some taken from dead bodies, catalogue Alaine’s retreat into a dangerous depression. As the family struggles to endure...

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Beirut Blues: A Novel 22nd February 2020

Al-Shaykh Hanan has confirmed her standing as the Arab world’s foremost woman writer. Now, in her new novel–available in English for the first time–she writes her farewell to Beirut, a city that no longer exists as she knew it....

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Sitt Marie Rose 22nd February 2020

Translated from the French by Georgina Kleege, Sitt Marie Rose, is the story of a woman abducted by militiamen during the Civil War in Lebanon. It reveals the tribal mentality which makes the Middle East a dangerous powerhouse. It...

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An Evil Cradling: The Five-Year Ordeal of a Hostage 22nd February 2020

When Brian Keenan went to Beirut in 1980 for a change from his native Belfast, he became front-page news when he was kidnapped by fundamentalist Shi’ite militiamen and held in the suburb of Beirut for the next four and...

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