“A beautifully written tale of tales, and a work of remembrance and recovery, of stories and lies, theft and justice. Superb stuff—completely beguiling.”—William DalrympleFinding Aladdin is a captivating work of literary deduction that unearths the true story of the young man who created Aladdin, a tale almost as strange as the fantastical stories themselves.When The Arabian Nights were first translated into European langu...

This is Gaza – a place of humanity and creativity, rich in culture and industry. A place now utterly devastated, its entire population displaced by a seemingly endless onslaught, its heritage destroyed.Daybreak in Gaza is a record of an extraordinary place and people, and of a culture preserved by the people themselves. Vignettes of artists, acrobats, doctors, students, shopkeepers and teachers offer stories of love, life, loss and survival. They display the wealth of Gaza...

At the Arab Spring's hopeful start, Alia Malek returned to Damascus to reclaim her grandmother's apartment, which had been lost to her family since Hafez al-Assad came to power in 1970. Its loss was central to her parent's decision to make their lives in America. In chronicling the people who lived in the Tahaan building, past and present, Alia portrays the Syrians-the Muslims, Christians, Jews, Armenians, and Kurds-who worked, loved, and suffered in close quarters, mirroring the political...

LONG-LISTED FOR THE CARNEGIE MEDALReminiscent of the work of Nobel Prize winner Svetlana Alexievich, an astonishing collection of intimate wartime testimonies and poetic fragments from a cross-section of Syrians whose lives have been transformed by revolution, war, and flight.Against the backdrop of the wave of demonstrations known as the Arab Spring, in 2011 hundreds of thousands of Syrians took to the streets demanding freedom, democracy ...

**“This impressive exposé from Weizman, founder of human rights investigative group Forensic Architecture, outlines how Israel uses environmental destruction as a tool of 'ethnic cleansing' against Palestinians.” —Publisher's Weekly (starred review)“Ungrounding is a work of profound moral clarity and scientific precision, based on years of tireless collaboration and advocacy. Urgent and essential reading.” —David Wengrow, co-author of New York Times-bestselling

In Hello Everybody! a bestseller in his native Holland, Joris Luyendijk tells the story of his five yearsas a reporter in the Middle East. Young and inexperienced but fluent in Arabic, he speaks to stone throwers and soldiers, taxi drivers and professors, victims and aggressors chronicling first-hand experiences of dictatorship, occupation and war. But the more he witnesses, the less he understands and he becomes increasingly aware of the yawning gap between what he sees on the gr...

An eminent historian looks to the present and future of Afghanistan as the U.S. withdraws from the longest war in its history. THE BROOKINGS ESSAY: In the spirit of its commitment to high-quality, independent research, the Brookings Institution has commissioned works on major topics of public policy by distinguished authors, including Brookings scholars. The Brookings Essay is a multi-platform product aimed to engage readers in open dialogue and debate. The views expressed, however, are so...

* A BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week *'A real-time, moving and intimate portrait of a year living under the Taliban' DUA LIPA'S SERVICE95'An intimate, courageous chronicle of life' OBSERVER, BOOK OF THE DAY'A hugely important book' BERNARDINE EVARISTO'A deeply moving collective memoir' LYSE DOUCETIn August 2021, as the Taliban approached the gates of Kabul...

LETTERS FROM GAZA is more than a book - it's a voice from the silence, a heartbeat in the wreckage. Through poetry, letters, and monologues, 30 Gazans lay bare their fears, grief, and relentless hope amid devastation. Since October 2023 the world has been witnessing the unfolding of the largest humanitarian crisis of this century. And the men, women and children spoken of around the world, fight being silenced through their written words. While we lamented at the visuals of unimaginable de...

How did Syria’s revolution reach this its current boiling point? And what’s next? This updated edition of My House in Damascus offers an insider’s view on these questions and the darker recesses of Syria’s history, politics, and society.Diana Darke, a fluent Arabic speaker who moved to Damascus in 2004 after decades of regular visits, details how the Assad regime, and its relationship to the people, differs from the regimes in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya—and why it was thus ...

Deborah Ellis presents the stories of children of the war-torn Middle East, based on interviews with Israeli and Palestinian children.In a rehabilitation center for disabled children, twelve-year-old Nora says she loves the color pink and chewing gum and explains that the wheels of her wheelchair are like her legs. Eleven-year-old Mohammad describes how his house was demolished by soldiers. And we meet twelve-year-old Salam, whose older sister walked into a store i...

Iran is rarely out of the headlines, and there is likely to be a rush of interest from tourists and investors if the provisional framework agreement reached in April 2015 is implemented, lifting most sanctions in exchange for limits on its nuclear program for at least ten years. Western fascination with Iran is nothing new. For centuries, foreigners have been entranced by a country that is quite distinct from all others in the region. Iran is home to one of the world's oldest civilizations...