Staff Picks
Celebrate Arab American Heritage Month With These Adult NonFiction Titles
- Savannah G.
- Monday, April 01
Collection
Celebrate the heritage, culture, and contributions of Arab and Arabic-speaking Americans with these nonfiction titles.
Poppies of Iraq
Published in 2017
"Poppies of Iraq is Brigitte Findakly's nuanced tender chronicle of her relationship with her homeland Iraq, co-written and drawn by her husband, the acclaimed cartoonist Lewis Trondheim. In spare and elegant detail, they share memories of her middle class childhood touching on cultural practices, the education system, Saddam Hussein's state control, and her family's history as Orthodox Christians in the arab world. Poppies of Iraq is intimate and wide-ranging; the story of how one can become separated from one's homeland and still feel intimately connected yet ultimately estranged. Signs of an oppressive regime permeate a seemingly normal life: magazines arrive edited by customs; the color red is banned after the execution of General Kassim; Baathist militiamen are publicly hanged and school kids are bussed past them to bear witness. As conditions in Mosul worsen over her childhood, Brigitte's father is always hopeful that life in Iraq will return to being secular and prosperous. The family eventually feels compelled to move to Paris, however, where Brigitte finds herself not quite belonging to either culture. Trondheim brings to life Findakly's memories to create a poignant family portrait that covers loss, tragedy, love, and the loneliness of exile."-- Provided by publisher.
A Stranger in Your Own City
Travels in the Middle East's Long War
Published in 2023
"An award-winning journalist's powerful portrait of his native Baghdad, the people of Iraq, and twenty years of war"-- Provided by publisher.
You Can Be the Last Leaf
Selected Poems
Published in 2022
"Translated from the Arabic and introduced by Fady Joudah, You Can Be the Last Leaf draws on two decades of work to present the transcendent and timely US debut of Palestinian poet Maya Abu Al-Hayyat"-- Provided by publisher.
I Shall Not Hate
A Gaza Doctor's Journey on the Road to Peace and Human Dignity
Published in 2011
Harvard-trained Palestinian doctor Izzeldin Abuelaish's recounts his extraordinary life of devotion to medicine and reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians.
Don't Forget Us Here
Lost and Found at Guantánamo
Published in 2021
"The moving, eye-opening memoir of an innocent man detained at Gauntánamo Bay for 15 years: a story of humanity in the unlikeliest of places and an unprecedented look at life at Gauntánamo on the eve of its 20th anniversary"-- Provided by publisher.
Faisal I of Iraq
Published in 2014
"Born in 1885, King Faisal I of Iraq was a seminal figure not only in the founding of the state of Iraq but also in the making of the modern Middle East. In all the tumult leading to the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and the establishment of new Arab states, Faisal was a central player. His life traversed each of the important political, military, and intellectual developments of his times. This comprehensive biography is the first to provide a fully rounded picture of Faisal the man and Faisal the monarch. Ali A. Allawi recounts the dramatic events of his subject's life and provides a reassessment of his crucial role in developments in the pre- and post-World War I Middle East and of his lasting but underappreciated influence in the region even 80 years after his death. A battle-hardened military leader who, with the help of Lawrence of Arabia, organized the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire; a leading representative of the Arab cause, alongside Gertrude Bell, at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919; a founding father and king of the first independent state of Syria; the first king of Iraq-in his many roles Faisal overcame innumerable crises and opposing currents while striving to build the structures of a modern state. This book is the first to afford his contributions to Middle East history the attention they deserve"-- Provided by publisher.
The Twenty-ninth Year
Poems
Published in 2019
For Hala Alyan, twenty-nine is a year of transformation and upheaval, a year in which the past-- memories of family members, old friends and past lovers, the heat of another land, another language, a different faith-- winds itself around the present. Hala's ever-shifting, subversive verse sifts together and through different forms of forced displacement and the tolls they take on mind and body. Poems leap from war-torn cities in the Middle East, to an Oklahoma Olive Garden, a Brooklyn brownstone; from alcoholism to recovery; from a single woman to a wife. This collection summons breathtaking chaos, one that seeps into the bones of these odes, the shape of these elegies. A vivid catalog of heartache, loneliness, love and joy, The Twenty-Ninth Year is an education in looking for home and self in the space between disparate identities.
Islamic State
The Digital Caliphate
Published in 2015
"Islamic State stunned the world when it overran an area the size of Britain on both sides of the Iraq-Syria border in a matter of weeks and proclaimed the birth of a new Caliphate. In this timely and important book, Abdel Bari Atwan draws on his unrivaled knowledge of the global jihadi movement and Middle Eastern geopolitics to reveal the origins and modus operandi of Islamic State. Based on extensive field research and exclusive interviews with IS insiders, Atwan outlines the group's leadership structure, as well as its strategies, tactics and diverse methods of recruitment. He traces the Salafi-jihadi lineage of IS, its ideological differences with al-Qa'ida and the deadly rivalry that has emerged between their leaders. Atwan also shows how the group's rapid growth has been facilitated by its masterful command of social media platforms, the 'dark web', Hollywood 'blockbuster'-style videos, and even jihadi computer games, producing a powerful paradox where the ambitions of the Middle Ages have re-emerged in cyber-space. As Islamic State continues to dominate the world's media headlines with horrific acts of ruthless violence, Atwan considers the movement's chances of survival and expansion, and offers indispensable insights on potential government responses to contain the IS threat"--Provided by publisher.
The Words of My Father
Love and Pain in Palestine
Published in 2019
In the Gaza Strip, growing up on land owned by his family for centuries, fourteen-year-old Yousef is preoccupied by video games, school pranks, and meeting his father's impossible high standards. Everything changes when the second Intifada erupts and soldiers occupy the family home, turning it into a virtual prison. Over time, Yosef learns the rules of his new life in captivity - but he can't anticipate that an Israeli bullet is about too transform his future in an instant.
Chroniques
Selected Columns, 2010-2016
Published in 2018
"This engaging collection of essays showcases the extraordinary passion, insight, and range of journalist and best-selling author of The Meursault Investigation, Kamel Daoud. He has been a journalist for more than twenty years, writing the most-read column in Algeria, in Le Quotidien d'Oran, while also collaborating on various online media and contributing to foreign publications such as the New York Times. During the 2010-2016 period, he put his name to almost two thousand texts--first intended for the Algerian public, then read more and more throughout the world as his reputation grew. Whether he is criticizing political Islam or the decline of the Algerian regime, embracing the hope kindled by Arab revolutions or defending women's rights, it is with an original voice, evocative, powerful, and engaged. Kamel Daoud has elevated the column to an exercise in style, an art of holding a mirror up to his contemporaries while constantly posing questions about the nature of man, religion, and liberty"-- Provided by publisher.
They Poured Fire on Us from the Sky
The True Story of Three Lost Boys from Sudan
Published in 2005
As gunshots, flames, and screams engulfed their village, three cousins fled into the cover of the forest. Every step led the boys away from their peaceful, agrarian world--a traditional world were spear-toting fathers protected their huts from the lions that roamed by night. With each footstep they were drawn deeper into the horrific violence of Sudan's civil war: a world of bombed-out villages, mine-sown roads, and relentless desert, a world where starving adults would snatch the grain from a weak child's fingers. Across Sudan, between 1987 and 1989, tens of thousands of young boys took flight from these massacres. Their journey led them first to Ethiopia and then, driven back into Sudan, toward Kenya. They walked nearly one thousand miles, sustained only by the sheer will to live. This book is the three boys' account of that unimaginable journey.--From publisher description.
What They Meant for Evil
How a Lost Girl of Sudan Found Healing, Peace, and Purpose in the Midst of Suffering
Published in 2019
Shares the author's story of how she fled the Sudan in 2000 and came to the United States as an unaccompanied refugee child, including how she survived gunfire, human and animal predators, hunger, and illness.
The Only Game in Town
Central Banks, Instability, and Avoiding the Next Collapse
Published in 2016
Examines the place of central banks in securing economic stability in the future, arguing for a change in policy that better targets what ails economies and prevents global economic disorder and stagnation.
Sex and the Citadel
Intimate Life in a Changing Arab World
Published in 2013
A groundbreaking examination of changing sexual attitudes and behaviors in the Middle East identifies the sexual factors behind key political, economic, social, and religious trends impacting the region.
Girl Decoded
A Scientist's Quest to Reclaim Our Humanity by Bringing Emotional Intelligence to Technology
Published in 2020
"In a captivating memoir, an Egyptian American visionary and scientist provides an intimate view of her personal transformation as she follows her calling-to humanize our technology and how we connect with one another. Rana el Kaliouby is a rarity in both the tech world and her native Middle East: a Muslim woman in charge in a field that is still overwhelmingly white and male. Growing up in Egypt and Kuwait, el Kaliouby was raised by a strict father who valued tradition-yet also had high expectations for his daughters-and a mother who was one of the first female computer programmers in the Middle East. Even before el Kaliouby broke ground as a scientist, she broke the rules of what it meant to be an obedient daughter and, later, an obedient wife to pursue her own daring dream. After earning her PhD at Cambridge, el Kaliouby, now the divorced mother of two, moved to America to pursue her mission to humanize technology before it dehumanizes us. The majority of our communication is conveyed through nonverbal cues: facial expressions, tone of voice, body language. But that communication is lost when we interact with others through our smartphones and devices. The result is an emotion-blind digital universe that impairs the very intelligence and capabilities-including empathy-that distinguish human beings from our machines. To combat our fundamental loss of emotional intelligence online, she cofounded Affectiva, the pioneer in the new field of Emotion AI, allowing our technology to understand humans the way we understand one another. Girl Decoded chronicles el Kaliouby's journey from being a "nice Egyptian girl" to becoming a woman, carving her own path as she revolutionizes technology. But decoding herself-learning to express and act on her own emotions-would prove to be the biggest challenge of all"-- Provided by publisher.
Girls That Never Die
Poems
Published in 2022
"In Girls That Never Die, award-winning poet Safia Elhillo reinvents the epic to explore Muslim girlhood and shame, the dangers of being a woman, and the myriad violences enacted and imagined against women's bodies. Drawing from her own life and family histories, as well as cultural myths and news stories about honor killings and genital mutilation, she interlaces the everyday traumas of growing up a girl under patriarchy with magical realist imaginings of rebellion, autonomy, and power. Elhillo writes anew world: women escape their stonings by birds that carry the rocks away; slain girls grow into two, like the hydra of lore, sprouting too numerous to ever be eradicated; circles of women are deemed holy, protected. Ultimately, Girls That Never Die is about wrestling ourselves from the threats of violence that constrain our lives, and instead looking to freedom and questioning: [what if i will not die] [what will govern me then]"-- Provided by publisher.
Headscarves and Hymens
Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution
Published in 2015
"Drawing on her years as a campaigner and commentator on women's issues in the Middle East, [Eltahawy] explains that since the Arab Spring began, women in the Arab world have had two revolutions to undertake: one fought with men against oppressive regimes, and another fought against an entire political and economic system that treats women in countries from Yemen and Saudi Arabia to Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya as second-class citizens ... Her book is a plea for outrage and action on their behalf, confronting the 'toxic mix of culture and religion that few seem willing or able to disentangle lest they blaspheme or offend'" -- Provided by publisher.
The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls
Published in 2019
"A bold and uncompromising feminist manifesto that shows women and girls how to defy, disrupt, and destroy the patriarchy by embracing the qualities they've been trained to avoid. Seizing upon the energy of the #MeToo movement, feminist activist Mona Eltahawy advocates a muscular, out-loud approach to teaching women and girls to harness their power through what she calls the "seven necessary sins" that women and girls are not supposed to commit: to be angry, ambitious, profane, violent, attention-seeking, lustful, and powerful. All the necessary "sins" that women and girls require to erupt. Eltahawy knows that the patriarchy is alive and well, and she is fed the hell up: Sexually assaulted during hajj at the age of fifteen. Groped on the dance floor of a night club in Montreal at fifty. Countless other injustices in the years between. Illuminating her call to action are stories of activists and ordinary women around the world--from South Africa to China, Nigeria to India, Bosnia to Egypt--who are tapping into their inner fury and crossing the lines of race, class, faith, and gender that make it so hard for marginalized women to be heard. Rather than teaching women and girls to survive the poisonous system they have found themselves in, Eltahawy arms them to dismantle it. Brilliant, bold, and energetic, The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls is a manifesto for all feminists in the fight against patriarchy"-- Provided by publisher.
Making the Arab World
Nasser, Qutb, and the Clash That Shaped the Middle East
Published in 2018
How the conflict between political Islamists and secular nationalists has shaped the history of the modern Middle East In 2013, just two years after the popular overthrow of Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian military ousted the country's first democratically elected president--Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood--and subsequently led a brutal repression of the Islamist group. These bloody events echoed an older political rift in Egypt and the Middle East: the splitting of nationalists and Islamists during the rule of Egyptian president and Arab nationalist leader Gamal Abdel Nasser. In Making the Arab World, Fawaz Gerges, one of the world's leading authorities on the Middle East, tells how the clash between pan-Arab nationalism and pan-Islamism has shaped the history of the region from the 1920s to the present. Gerges tells this story through an unprecedented dual biography of Nasser and another of the twentieth-century Arab world's most influential figures--Sayyid Qutb, a leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood and the father of many branches of radical political Islam. Their deeply intertwined lives embody and dramatize the divide between Arabism and Islamism. Yet, as Gerges shows, beyond the ideological and existential rhetoric, this is a struggle over the state, its role, and its power. Based on a decade of research, including in-depth interviews with many leading figures in the story, Making the Arab World is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the roots of the turmoil engulfing the Middle East, from civil wars to the rise of Al-Qaeda and ISIS.
Black Wave
Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the Forty-year Rivalry That Unraveled Culture, Religion, and Collective Memory in the Middle East
Published in 2020
"The bestselling author of The Secretary tells the gripping story of the real roots of the Sunni-Shia conflict in Middle East in the 1979 Iran Revolution that changed the region forever"-- Provided by publisher.
Letters to a Young Muslim
Published in 2017
"Omar Saif Ghobash was born in 1971 in the United Arab Emirates--the same year the country was founded--to an Arab father and a Russian mother. After a traumatizing experience losing his father to a violent attack in 1977, when he was only six years old, Ghobash began to realize the severe violence that surrounded him in his home country. As he grew older, eventually being appointed as the UAE Ambassador to Russia in 2008, he began to reflect on what it means to be a Muslim, establishing a moral foundation rooted in the belief of the hard grind that is the crux of spiritual and practical living. This book is the result of the personal exploration Ghobash went through in the years after his father's death. The new generation of Muslims is tomorrow's leadership, and yet many are vulnerable to taking the violent shortcut to paradise and ignoring the traditions and foundations of Islam. The burning question, Ghobash argues, is how moderate Muslims will unite and find a voice that is true to Islam while actively and productively engaging in the modern world. Letters to a Young Muslim will explore how Arabs can provide themselves, their children, and their youth with a better chance of prosperity and peace in a globalized world, while attempting to explain the history and complications of the modern-day Arab landscape and how the younger generation can solve problems with extremists internally, contributing to overall world peace"-- Provided by publisher.
Revolution 2.0
The Power of the People is Greater Than the People in Power
Published in 2012
A key figure behind the Egyptian uprising in January 2011 which resulted in the ousting of President Mubarak tells the inside story and presents lessons on how to unleash the power of crowds to create political change.
White Tears Brown Scars
How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color
Published in 2020
"Taking us from the slave era, when white women fought in court to keep "ownership" of their slaves, through the centuries of colonialism, when they offered a soft face for brutal tactics, to the modern workplace, White Tears/Brown Scars tells a charged story of white women's active participation in campaigns of oppression. It offers a long overdue validation of the experiences of women of color."-- Publisher marketing.
Ante Body
Published in 2022
An incisive poetic sequence that tracks the relationship between migration and complex traumas in this unsparing critique of the unjust conditions that brought us the global pandemic. Ante body is a poetics of [un]rest. A project that started as an exploration of how the psychological impacts of migration and complex traumas manifest as autoimmune disease and grew into a critique of the ongoing unjust conditions that brought on the global pandemic. Continuing her use of the invented poetic form, the Arabic, and integrating Fred Moten's concept of "the ANTE," Helal creates an elliptical reading experience in which content and form interrogate the inner workings of patriarchy, capitalism, nationalism, and globalism.-- Publisher description.
My Brother, My Land
A Story from Palestine
Published in 2024
"In 1967, Sireen Sawalha's mother, with her young children, walked back to Palestine against the traffic of exile. My Brother, My Land is the story of Sireen's family in the decades that followed and their lives in the Palestinian village of Kufr Ra'i. From Sireen's early life growing up in the shadow of the '67 War and her family's work as farmers caring for their land, to the involvement of her brother Iyad in armed resistance in the First and Second Intifada, Sami Hermez, with Sireen Sawalha, crafts a rich story of intertwining voices, mixing genres of oral history, memoir, and creative nonfiction. Through the lives of the Sawalha family, and the story of Iyad's involvement in the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hermez confronts readers with the politics and complexities of armed resistance and the ethical tensions and contradictions that arise, as well as with the dispossession and suffocation of people living under occupation and their ordinary lives in such times. Whether this story leaves readers discomforted, angry, or empowered, they will certainly emerge with a deeper understanding of the Palestinian predicament"-- Provided by publisher.
Prey
Immigration, Islam, and the Erosion of Women's Rights
Published in 2021
"The New York Times bestselling author of Infidel, Nomad, and Heretic argues that waves of Muslim immigration are transforming sexual politics in Europe in ways that threaten to undermine the hard-won rights of Western women"-- Provided by publisher.
Brothers of the Gun
A Memoir of the Syrian War
Published in 2018
"A bracingly immediate memoir by a young man coming of age during the Syrian war, Brothers of the Gun is an intimate lens on the century's bloodiest conflict and a profound meditation on kinship, home, and freedom." -- Amazon.com.
The Muqaddimah
Published in 2020
The Muqaddimah, often translated as "Introduction" or "Prolegomenon," is the most important Islamic history of the premodern world. Written by the great fourteenth-century Arab scholar Ibn Khaldûn (d. 1406), this monumental work established the foundations of several fields of knowledge, including the philosophy of history, sociology, ethnography, and economics. The first complete English translation, by the eminent Islamicist and interpreter of Arabic literature Franz Rosenthal, was published in three volumes in 1958 as part of the Bollingen Series and received immediate acclaim in the United States and abroad. A one-volume abridged version of Rosenthal's masterful translation first appeared in 1969. This Princeton Classics edition of the abridged version includes Rosenthal's original introduction as well as a contemporary introduction by Bruce B. Lawrence. This volume makes available a seminal work of Islam and medieval and ancient history to twenty-first century audiences. "Ibn Khaldûn, the great 14th-century Arab scholar, is the most authoritative and most beguiling of Arabic polymaths…. His learning and ideas have an astonishingly modern relevance. His encyclopaedic work is a wonderfully readable mixture of history, sociology, ethnography, economics, science, art, literature, cookery, and medicine."---Iain Finlayson, Times "[The] most remarkable book written during the entire Middle Ages, one of the great intellectual achievements of all time." "From review of Princeton's original edition: "[N. J. Dawood] has, by skillful abridgement and deft but unobtrusive editing, produced an attractive and manageable volume, which should make the essential ideas of Ibn Khaldûn accessible to a wide circle of readers."" "From review of Princeton's original edition: "Undoubtedly the greatest work of its kind that has ever been created by any mind in any time or place . . . the most comprehensive and illuminating analysis of how human affairs work that has been made anywhere.""---Arnold J. Toynbee, Observer
Running for My Life
One Lost Boy's Journey from the Killing Fields of Sudan to the Olympic Games
Published in 2012
We Need New Stories
The Myths That Subvert Freedom
Published in 2021
"A rigorous examination of six political myths used to deflect and discredit demands for social justice. In 2016, presidential candidate Donald Trump declared: "I think the big problem this country has is being politically correct." Reeling from his victory, Democrats blamed the corrosive effect of "identity politics." When banned from Twitter for inciting violence, Trump and his supporters claimed that the measure was an assault on "free speech." In We Need New Stories, Nesrine Malik explains that all of these arguments are political myths-variations on the lie that American values are under assault. Exploring how these and other common political myths function, she breaks down how they are employed to subvert calls for equality from historically disenfranchised groups. Interweaving reportage with an incendiary analysis of American history and politics, she offers a compelling account of how calls to preserve "free speech" are used against the vulnerable; how a fixation with "wokeness," "political correctness," and "cancel culture" is in fact an organized and well-funded campaign by elites; and how the fear of racial minorities and their "identity politics" obscures the biggest threat of all-white terrorism. What emerges is a radical framework for understanding the crises roiling American contemporary politics"-- Provided by publisher.
A Month in Siena
Published in 2019
"After finishing his powerful memoir The Return, Hisham Matar, seeking solace and pleasure, traveled to Siena, Italy. Always finding comfort and clarity in great art, Matar immersed himself in eight significant works from the Sienese School of painting, which flourished from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries. Artists whom he had admired throughout his life, such as Duccio and Ambrogio Lorenzetti, evoke earlier engagements he has had with works by Caravaggio and Poussin, and the personal experiences that surrounded those moments. Complete with gorgeous full-color reproductions of the artworks, A Month in Siena is about what occurred between Matar, those paintings, and the city. That month would be an extraordinary period in Matar's life: an exploration of how art can console and disturb in equal measure, as well as an intimate encounter with the city and its inhabitants. This is a gorgeous meditation on how centuries-old art can illuminate our own inner landscape--current relationships, long-lasting love, grief, intimacy, and solitude--and shed further light on the present world around us"-- Provided by publisher.
The Return
Fathers, Sons, and the Land in Between
Published in 2016
"In 2012, after the overthrow of Qaddafi, the acclaimed novelist Hisham Matar journeys to his native Libya after an absence of thirty years. When he was twelve, Matar and his family went into political exile. Eight years later Matar's father, a former diplomat and military man turned brave political dissident, was kidnapped from the streets of Cairo by the Libyan government and is believed to have been held in the regime's most notorious prison. Now, the prisons are empty and little hope remains that Jaballah Matar will be found alive. Yet, as the author writes, hope is "persistent and cunning." This book is a profoundly moving family memoir, a brilliant and affecting portrait of a country and a people on the cusp of immense change, and a disturbing and timeless depiction of the monstrous nature of absolute power"-- Provided by publisher.
The Beekeeper
Rescuing the Stolen Women of Iraq
Published in 2018
"Since 2014, Daesh (ISIS) has been brutalizing the Yazidi people of northern Iraq: sowing destruction, killing those who won't convert to Islam, and enslaving young girls and women. The Beekeeper, by the acclaimed poet and journalist Dunya Mikhail, tells the harrowing stories of several women who managed to escape the clutches of Daesh. Mikhail extensively interviews these women--who've lost their families and loved ones, who've been repeatedly sold, raped, psychologically tortured, and forced to manufacture chemical weapons--and as their tales unfold, an unlikely hero emerges: a beekeeper, who uses his knowledge of the local terrain, along with a wide network of transporters, helpers, and former cigarette smugglers, to bring these women, one by one, through the war-torn landscapes of Iraq, Syria, and Turkey, back into safety. In the face of inhuman suffering, this powerful work of nonfiction offers a counterpoint to Daesh's genocidal extremism: hope, as ordinary people risk their lives to save those of others"-- Provided by publisher.
Rebel
My Escape from Saudi Arabia to Freedom
Published in 2022
In January 2019, then 18-year-old Saudi woman Rahaf Mohammed escaped from her family while holidaying in Kuwait. She was fleeing systematic abuse of her human rights as a woman growing up in Saudi Arabia and, specifically, her family's threats to kill her because she desired the freedoms Western women take for granted. She boarded a plane bound for Bangkok, en route to Australia where she intended to seek asylum. But on her arrival the Thai authorities, acting on the instructions of Saudi officials, detained Rahaf with the aim of returning her to her family. Knowing this would mean her death, Rahaf barricaded herself in an airport hotel room and appealed for help through social media, creating a Twitter storm and capturing the attention of government leaders, human rights advocates and media around the world. Rahaf was eventually taken under the protection of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and granted refugee status. When Australian authorities failed to respond with the urgency the situation required, she was granted asylum in Canada. Seven days after her ordeal began, she arrived in Toronto to begin a new life. Rebel is a passionate story by a woman who refused to allow a system to define who she was and what she could be. It shines a light on the rampant and dangerous inequalities that persist in Saudi society, and inspires women everywhere to dream of a better future for themselves, and their daughters.
The Last Girl
My Story of Captivity, and My Fight Against the Islamic State
Published in 2017
"In this intimate memoir of survival, a former captive of the Islamic State tells her harrowing and ultimately inspiring story. Nadia Murad was born and raised in Kocho, a small village of farmers and shepherds in northern Iraq. A member of the Yazidi community, she and her brothers and sisters lived a quiet life. Nadia had dreams of becoming a history teacher or opening her own beauty salon. On August 15th, 2014, when Nadia was just twenty-one years old, this life ended. Islamic State militants massacred the people of her village, executing men who refused to convert to Islam and women too old to become sex slaves. Six of Nadia's brothers were killed, and her mother soon after, their bodies swept into mass graves. Nadia was taken to Mosul and forced, along with thousands of other Yazidi girls, into the ISIS slave trade. Nadia would be held captive by several militants and repeatedly raped and beaten. Finally, she managed a narrow escape through the streets of Mosul, finding shelter in the home of a Sunni Muslim family whose eldest son risked his life to smuggle her to safety. Today, Nadia's story--as a witness to the Islamic State's brutality, a survivor of rape, a refugee, a Yazidi--has forced the world to pay attention to the ongoing genocide in Iraq. It is a call to action, a testament to the human will to survive, and a love letter to a lost country, a fragile community, and a family torn apart by war"-- Provided by publisher.
Nujeen
One Girl's Incredible Journey from War-torn Syria in a Wheelchair
Published in 2016
Traces the inspiring story of Syrian refugee Nujeen Mustafa, who after being born with cerebral palsy and denied an education because of her disability made a harrowing journey by wheelchair from her war-ravaged home to safety in Germany.
This is What America Looks Like
My Journey from Refugee to Congresswoman
Published in 2020
"An intimate and rousing memoir by progressive trailblazer Ilhan Omar-the first African refugee, the first Somali-American, and one of the first Muslim women, elected to Congress. Ilhan Omar was only eight years old when war broke out in Somalia. The youngest of seven children, her mother had died while Ilhan was still a little girl. She was being raised by her father and grandfather when armed gunmen attacked their compound and the family decided to flee Mogadishu. They ended up in a refugee camp in Kenya, where Ilhan says she came to understand the deep meaning of hunger and death. Four years later, after a painstaking vetting process, her family achieved refugee status and arrived in Arlington, Virginia. Aged twelve, penniless, speaking only Somali and having missed out on years of schooling, Ilhan rolled up her sleeves, determined to find her American dream. Faced with the many challenges of being an immigrant and a refugee, she questioned stereotypes and built bridges with her classmates and in her community. In under two decades she became a grassroots organizer, graduated from college and was elected to congress with a record-breaking turnout by the people of Minnesota-ready to keep pushing boundaries and restore moral clarity in Washington D.C. A beacon of positivity in dark times, Congresswoman Omar has weathered many political storms and yet maintained her signature grace, wit and love of country-all the while speaking up for her beliefs. Similarly, in chronicling her remarkable personal journey, Ilhan is both lyrical and unsentimental, and her irrepressible spirit, patriotism, friendship and faith are visible on every page. As a result, This is What America Looks Like is both the inspiring coming of age story of a refugee and a multidimensional tale of the hopes and aspirations, disappointments and failures, successes, sacrifices and surprises, of a devoted public servant with unshakable faith in the promise of America"-- Provided by publisher.
Islamism
What It Means for the Middle East and the World
Published in 2016
"A political, social, and cultural battle is currently raging in the Middle East. On one side are the Islamists, those who believe Islam should be the region's primary identity. In opposition are nationalists, secularists, royal families, military establishments, and others who view Islamism as a serious threat to national security, historical identity, and a cohesive society. This provocative, vitally important work explores the development of the largest, most influential Islamic groups in the Middle East over the past century. Tarek Osman examines why political Islam managed to win successive elections and how Islamist groups in various nations have responded after ascending to power. He dissects the alliances that have formed among Islamist factions and against them, addressing the important issues of Islamism's compatibility with modernity, with the region's experiences in the twentieth century, and its impact on social contracts and minorities. He explains what Salafism means, its evolution, and connections to jihadist groups in the Middle East. Osman speculates on what the Islamists' prospects for the future will mean for the region and the rest of the world."--Publisher website.
Orientalism
Published in 1994
The noted critic and a Palestinian now teaching at Columbia University, examines the way in which the West observes the Arabs.
The Selected Works of Edward Said, 1966-2006
Published in 2019
Presents key selections from the works of Edward Said.
The White Mosque
A Memoir
Published in 2022
"In the late nineteenth century, a group of German-speaking Mennonites traveled from Russia into Central Asia, where their charismatic leader predicted Christ would return. Over a century later, Sofia Samatar joins a tour following their path, fascinated not by the hardships of their journey, but by its aftermath: the establishment of a small Christian village in the Muslim Khanate of Khiva. Named Ak Metchet, "The White Mosque," after the Mennonites' whitewashed church, the village lasted for fifty years. In pursuit of this curious history, Samatar discovers a variety of characters whose lives intersect around the ancient Silk Road, from a fifteenth-century astronomer-king, to an intrepid Swiss woman traveler of the 1930s, to the first Uzbek photographer, and explores such topics as Central Asian cinema, Mennonite martyrs, and Samatar's own complex upbringing as the daughter of a Swiss-Mennonite and a Somali-Muslim, raised as a Mennonite of color in America"-- Provided by publisher.
We Are Not Here to Be Bystanders
A Memoir of Love and Resistance
Published in 2020
"Women's March co-organizer Linda Sarsour shares how growing up Palestinian Muslim American, feminist, and empowered moved her to become a globally recognized and celebrated activist on behalf of marginalized communities across the country"-- Provided by publisher.
The Arab of the Future
A Childhood in the Middle East (1978-1984)
Published in 2015
"In striking, virtuoso graphic style that captures both the immediacy of childhood and the fervor of political idealism, Riad Sattouf recounts his nomadic childhood growing up in rural France, Gaddafi's Libya, and Assad's Syria--but always under the roof of his father, a Syrian Pan-Arabist who drags his family along in his pursuit of grandiose dreams for the Arab nation. Riad, delicate and wide-eyed, follows in the trail of his mismatched parents; his mother, a bookish French student, is as modest as his father is flamboyant. Venturing first to the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab State and then joining the family tribe in Homs, Syria, they hold fast to the vision of the paradise that always lies just around the corner. And hold they do, though food is scarce, children kill dogs for sport, and with locks banned, the Sattoufs come home one day to discover another family occupying their apartment. The ultimate outsider, Riad, with his flowing blond hair, is called the ultimate insult... Jewish. And in no time at all, his father has come up with yet another grand plan, moving from building a new people to building his own great palace. Brimming with life and dark humor, The Arab of the Future reveals the truth and texture of one eccentric family in an absurd Middle East, and also introduces a master cartoonist in a work destined to stand alongside Maus and Persepolis"-- Provided by publisher.
Going Home
A Walk Through Fifty Years of Occupation
Published in 2019
"In a dazzling mix of reportage, analysis, and memoir, the leading Palestinian writer of our time reflects on aging, failure, the occupation, and the changing face of Ramallah"-- Provided by publisher.
We Could Have Been Friends, My Father and I
A Palestinian Memoir
Published in 2023
"A subtle psychological portrait of the author's relationship with his father during the twentieth-century battle for Palestinian human rights. Aziz Shehadeh was many things: lawyer, activist, and political detainee, he was also the father of bestselling author and activist Raja. In this new and searingly personal memoir, Raja Shehadeh unpicks the snags and complexities of their relationship. A vocal and fearless opponent, Aziz resists under the British mandatory period, then under Jordan, and, finally, under Israel. As a young man, Raja fails to recognize his father's courage and, in turn, his father does not appreciate Raja's own efforts in campaigning for Palestinian human rights. When Aziz is murdered in 1985, it changes Raja irrevocably. This is not only the story of the battle against the various oppressors of the Palestinians, but a moving portrait of a particular father and son relationship"-- Provided by publisher.
Antifragile
Things That Gain from Disorder
Published in 2012
"The acclaimed author of the influential bestseller The Black Swan, Nicholas Nassim Taleb takes a next big step with a deceptively simple concept: the "antifragile." Like the Greek hydra that grows two heads for each one it loses, people, systems, and institutions that are antifragile not only withstand shocks, they benefit from them. In a modern world dominated by chaos and uncertainty, Antifragile is a revolutionary vision from one of the most subversive and important thinkers of our time"-- Provided by publisher.
The Black Swan
The Impact of the Highly Improbable
Published in 2010
Examines the role of the unexpected, discussing why improbable events are not anticipated or understood properly, and how humans rationalize the black swan phenomenon to make it appear less random.
Skin in the Game
Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life
Published in 2020
The phrase "skin in the game" is one we have often heard but have rarely stopped to truly dissect. It is the backbone of risk management, but it's also an astonishingly complex worldview that applies to all aspects of our lives. Nassim Nicholas Taleb pulls on everything from Antaeus the Giant to Hammurabi to Donald Trump to Seneca to the ethics of disagreement to create a tapestry for understanding our world in a brand new way. Among his insights: For social justice, focus on symmetry and risk sharing -- Ethical rules aren't universal -- Minorities, not majorities, run the world -- You can be an intellectual yet still be an idiot -- Beware of complicated solutions (that someone was paid to find) -- True religion is commitment, not just faith.
They Called Me a Lioness
A Palestinian Girl's Fight for Freedom
Published in 2022
"What would you do if you grew up repeatedly seeing your home raided? Your parents arrested? Your mother shot? Your uncle killed? Try, if just for a moment, to imagine this was your life. How would you want the world to react?" Ahed Tamimi's father was born in 1967, the year that the Israeli occupation of the West Bank began, and every aspect of their family's life has been touched by it. One of Ahed's earliest memories is visiting her father in prison, poking her three-year-old fingers through the fence to touch his hand. The ubiquitous security checkpoints and armed guards even found their way into her childhood fairytales and playdates. Her grandmother regaled her not with nursery rhymes, but with the sage of her family and its tragedies. Instead of cops and robbers, there was Jaysh o 'Arab, or "Army and Arabs," where children roleplayed as Israeli soldiers opposing a community of Palestinians. She recounts all of this and more in her vivid and riveting memoir, one of the first to deal directly with what life in occupation actually means for the people in it, beyond geography or policy. It brings readers into the daily life of the young woman seen as a freedom-fighting hero by some and a naïve agitator by others. Beyond recounting her well-publicized interactions with Israeli soldiers, there is her unwavering commitment to family and her fearless command of her own voice, despite threats, intimidation, and even incarceration"-- Provided by publisher.
A Woman in the Crossfire
Diaries of the Syrian Revolution
Published in 2012
This work is a devastating and personal account of the ongoing uprising in Syria from a prominent Syrian journalist now in hiding. The author, a well known novelist and journalist from the coastal city of Jableh, has witnessed the first four months of the uprising first hand and actively participated in a variety of public actions and budding social movements. Throughout this period she kept a diary of personal reflections on, and observations of, this historic time. Because of the outspoken views she published in print and online, she quickly attracted the attention and fury of the regime, and vicious rumours started to spread about her disloyalty to the homeland and to the Alawite community that she belongs to. This narrative weaves together her independent struggle to protect herself and her young daughter even as her activism propels her into a daunting labyrinth of insecurity after she is forced from her home into living on the run and detained multiple times, expelled from the Alawite community and repudiated by her family, her hometown and even her childhood friends. With empathy and journalistic rigour she began to compile oral testimonies from ordinary Syrians, both as a means of documenting contemporary history and as a way for her to better understand the forces that contributed to the outbreak of the uprising. Filled with snapshots of exhilarating hope and horrifying atrocities, she offers us a unique perspective on the Syrian uprising. Hers is a modest yet powerful testament to the strength and commitment of countless unnamed, individual Syrians who have united to fight for their freedom. These diaries will inspire all those who read them and challenge the world to look anew at the trials and tribulations of the Syrian uprising.
Son of Hamas
A Gripping Account of Terror, Betrayal, Political Intrigue, and Unthinkable Choices
Published in 2011
Son of Hamas is now available in softcover with an all-new chapter about events since the book's release such as the revelation of Mosab's Israeli intelligence handler's true identity, and Homeland Security's effort to deport the author.Since he was a small boy, Mosab Hassan Yousef has had an inside view of the deadly terrorist group Hamas. The oldest son of Sheikh Hassan Yousef, a founding member of Hamas and its most popular leader, young Mosab assisted his father for years in his political activities while being groomed to assume his legacy, politics, status . . . and power. But everything changed when Mosab turned away from terror and violence, and embraced instead the teachings of another famous Middle East leader. In Son of Hamas, Mosab reveals new information about the world's most dangerous terrorist organization and unveils the truth about his own role, his agonizing separation from family and homeland, the dangerous decision to make his newfound faith public, and his belief that the Christian mandate to "love your enemies" is the only way to peace in the Middle East.
Revolution for Dummies
Published in 2017
"Hilarious and Heartbreaking. Comedy shouldn't take courage, but it made an exception for Bassem." ?Jon Stewart The Jon Stewart of the Arabic World"?the creator of The Program , the most popular television show in Egypt's history?chronicles his transformation from heart surgeon to political satirist, and offers crucial insight into the Arab Spring, the Egyptian Revolution, and the turmoil roiling the modern Middle East, all of which inspired the documentary about his life, Tickling Giants . Bassem Youssef's incendiary satirical news program, Al-Bernameg (The Program), chronicled the events of the 2011 Egyptian Revolution, the fall of President Hosni Mubarak, and the rise of Mubarak's successor, Mohamed Morsi. Youssef not only captured his nation's dissent but stamped it with his own brand of humorous political criticism, in which the Egyptian government became the prime laughing stock. So potent were Youssef's skits, jokes, and commentary, the authoritarian government accused him of insulting the Egyptian presidency and Islam. After a six-hour long police interrogation, Youssef was released. While his case was eventually dismissed, his television show was terminated, and Youssef, fearful for his safety, fled his homeland. In Revolution for Dummies, Youssef recounts his life and offers hysterical riffs on the hypocrisy, instability, and corruption that has long animated Egyptian politics. From the attempted cover-up of the violent clashes in Tahrir Square to the government's announcement that it had created the world's first "AIDS cure" machine, to the conviction of officials that Youssef was a CIA operative?recruited by Jon Stewart?to bring down the country through sarcasm. There's much more?and it's all insanely true. Interweaving the dramatic and inspiring stories of the development of his popular television show and his rise as the most contentious funny-man in Egypt, Youssef's humorous, fast-paced takes on dictatorship, revolution, and the unforeseeable destiny of democracy in the Modern Middle East offers much needed hope and more than a few healing laughs. A documentary about his life, Tickling Giants, debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2016, and is now scheduled for major release.