In January 2017, President Trump signed an executive order banning people from seven Muslim-majority countries – Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen – from entering the United States, effectively slamming the door on refugees seeking safety and tearing families apart. Mass protests followed, and although the order has since been blocked, amended and challenged by judges, it still stands as one of the most discriminatory laws to be passed in the US in modern times. Banthology...

What elevates 'teaching my mother how to give birth', what gives the poems their disturbing brilliance, is Warsan Shire's ability to give simple, beautiful eloquence to the veiled world where sensuality lives in the dominant narrative of Islam; reclaiming the more nuanced truths of earlier times - as in Tayeb Salih's work - and translating to the realm of lyric the work of the likes of Nawal El Saadawi. As Rumi said, "Love will find its way through all languages on its own"; in 'teaching m...

Nazanin Afshin-Jam was on top of the world. In 2006, she had just signed her first record deal and, after placing as first runner-up for Miss World, was a sought-after fashion model and icon within the Iranian dissident community. But one afternoon, she received an email that would change the course of her life. The subject of that email—a Kurdish girl named Nazanin Fatehi—was facing execution in Iran, as punishment for stabbing a man who had tried to rape her. Afshin-Jam quickly came to F...

From M.G. Vassanji, two-time Giller Prize winner and winner of the Governor General's Literary Award, comes a finely crafted collection of short fiction that explores the tensions between remembering past homes and belonging in new ones.Weaving between wistful memories of youthful ambition and the compromises and comforts of age, travelling between the streets of Dar es Salaam and Toronto, the characters in these stories must negotiate distance--between here and th...

Khartoum, according to one theory, takes its name from the Beja word hartooma, meaning meeting place . Geographically, culturally and historically, the Sudanese capital is certainly that: a meeting place of the Blue and White Niles, a confluence of Arabic and African histories, and a destination point for countless refugees displaced by Sudan s long, troubled history of forced migration.In the pages of this book the first major anthology of Sudanese stories to be translated into En...

This Step 4 Biography Reader shares the inspiring story of Malala Yousafzai, the youngest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. Even as a young girl in Pakistan, Malala spoke up about the importance of girls’ education, via speeches and a blog. Since the Taliban regime was intent on denying girls an education and silencing anyone who disagreed with their laws, this was very dangerous. Malala was shot, but she survived the attack and it did not silence her. In fact, she spoke at the United Na...

A coffee seller waits all day for one of his customers to ask him how he is, until eventually he just tells the city itself...A teenager is ordered off a bus at a checkpoint and told he must kiss a complete stranger if he wants the bus to be let through...A woman pilgrimages to the Cave of the Prophets, to pray for rain for her tiny patch of land, knowing it will take more than water to save it...Unlike most other Palestinian cities, Ramallah is a relatively new tow...

Featuring:Nedim Gursel (Istanbul), Gamal Al-Ghitani (Alexandria), Fadwa Al-Qasem (Dubai), Ala Hlehel (Akka), Hassan Blasim (Baghdad), Yousef Al-Mohaimeed (Riyadh), Elias Farkouh (Amman), Nabil Sulayman (Latakia), Joumana Haddad (Beirut), and Yitzhak Laor (Tel Aviv).About the Book‘Madinah’ – the Arabic word for ‘city’ – may conjure labyrinthine streets and the hustle and bustle of the souq in Westerners’ minds, but for the inhabitants ...

This unique anthology of crime fiction features 15 original stories of "scandals, smugglers, and other sordid tales" by award-winning Moroccan authors (CrimeReads).At first glance, Marrakech may seem like an odd setting for noir fiction. Contemporary Moroccans call it The Joyful City—a place where locals are happy to joke about gossip and quick to forget stories of crime. But in Marrakech Noir, some of Morocco's finest authors address old wrong that have b...

She grew up in a world where women were supposed to be quiet. But Malala Yousafzai refused to be silent. Discover Malala's story through this powerful narrative telling, and come to see how one brave girl named Malala changed the world.

This article details a short trip to Tripoli and Leptis Magna in Libya, during the first days of the Arab Spring. Libya appeared to be making its first tentative steps towards opening up to mass tourism but then everything changed.

On March 5th, 2007, a car bomb was exploded on al-Mutanabbi Street in Baghdad. More than thirty people were killed and more than one hundred were wounded. This locale is the historic center of Baghdad bookselling, a winding street filled with bookstores and outdoor book stalls. Named after the famed 10th century classical Arab poet al-Mutanabbi, it has been the heart and soul of the Baghdad literary and intellectual community. This anthology begins with a historical introduction to al-Muta...