Bk Theme: History
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The Blue Between Sky and Water
In the small Palestinian farming village of Beit Daras, the women of the Baraka family inspire awe. Nazmiyeh is brazen and fiercely protective of her clairvoyant little sister, Mariam, with her mismatched eyes, and of their mother, Um Mahmoud, known for the fearsome djinn that sometimes possesses her. When the family is forced by the…
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Mornings in Jenin
Mornings in Jenin is a multi-generational story about a Palestinian family. Forcibly removed from the olive-farming village of Ein Hod by the newly formed state of Israel in 1948, the Abulhejos are displaced to live in canvas tents in the Jenin refugee camp. We follow the Abulhejo family as they live through a half century of…
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Mother of Strangers
Set in Jaffa in 1947-51, this fable-like novel is a heartbreaking tale of young love during the beginning of the destruction of Palestine and displacement of its people. At times darkly humorous and ironic but also profoundly moving, this novel based on a true story follows the lives of a 15-year-old engineer, Subhi, and the 13-year-old…
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On Zionist Literature
Translated into English for the first time after its publication in 1967, Ghassan Kanafani’s On Zionist Literature makes an incisive analysis of the body of literary fiction written in support of the Zionist colonization of Palestine.Interweaving his literary criticism of works by George Eliot, Arthur Koestler, and many others with a historical materialist narrative, Kanafani…
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Salt Houses
On the eve of her daughter Alia’s wedding, Salma reads the girl’s future in a cup of coffee dregs. She sees an unsettled life for Alia and her children; she also sees travel, and luck. While she chooses to keep her predictions to herself that day, they will all soon come to pass when the family is uprooted in the…
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My Part of Her
In exiled Iranian author Javad Djavahery’s captivating English debut, a youthful betrayal during a summer on the Caspian sea has far-reaching consequences for a group of friends as their lives are irrevocably altered by the Revolution.For our unnamed confessor, the summer months spent on the Caspian Sea during the 1970s are a magically transformative experience.…
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The Island of Missing Trees
It is 1974 on the island of Cyprus. Two teenagers, from opposite sides of a divided land, meet at a tavern in the city they both call home. The tavern is the only place that Kostas, who is Greek and Christian, and Defne, who is Turkish and Muslim, can meet, in secret, hidden beneath the…
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Our Women on the Ground
Nineteen Arab women journalists speak out about what it’s like to report on their changing homelands in this first-of-its-kind essay collection, with a foreword by CNN chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour”A stirring, provocative and well-made new anthology . . . that rewrites the hoary rules of the foreign correspondent playbook, deactivating the old clich s.”…
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The Bastard of Istanbul
A “vivid and entertaining” (Chicago Tribune) tale about the tangled history of two families, from the author of The Forty Rules of Love and The Architect’s ApprenticeZesty, imaginative . . . a Turkish version of Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club. –USA Today As an Armenian American living in San Francisco, Armanoush feels like part of her identity is missing and…
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Orientalism
More than three decades after its first publication, Edward Said’s groundbreaking critique of the West’s historical, cultural, and political perceptions of the East has become a modern classic.In this wide-ranging, intellectually vigorous study, Said traces the origins of “orientalism” to the centuries-long period during which Europe dominated the Middle and Near East and, from its…