Middle Eastern History

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A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea is a 2017 book by Melissa Fleming, telling the true story of a young girl named Doaa who fled the Syrian civil war. Made a refugee by the conflict, she travels to Egypt and then attempts to cross the Mediterranean to Europe. The book has won numerous awards.Plot SummaryThe story opens with Doaa Al Zamel floating in the sea amid the wreckage of a ship. Her husband is... Read A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea Summary

Eleven-year-old Pakistani-American Amina Khokar lives in Milwaukee with her mother, father, and brother, Mustafa. At school, a Korean girl named Soojin Kim is her best friend. Amina is distressed when Soojin befriends Emily, a girl who has historically joined in on racially-motivated taunts against Soojin and Amina. The situation is complicated when Amina, Emily, and Soojin—along with the class oddball, Bradley—are assigned to the same group for an Oregon Trail project in their social studies... Read Amina's Voice Summary

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Etaf Rum’s debut novel, A Woman Is No Man, was originally published in 2019. According to Rum, the novel, a work of historical fiction, relies heavily on autobiographical details. In fact, Rum’s life so closely parallels her characters’ lives that the narrative effectively blurs the line between fiction and memoir.Switching between past and present, the novel tells the intergenerational story of Isra, a Palestinian immigrant living in Brooklyn, and her daughter Deya, growing up in... Read A Woman Is No Man Summary

Celestial Bodies is a novel by Omani author Jokha Alharthi, translated into English by Marilyn Booth. Charting the lives of various generations of a family in the fictional town of al-Awafi, it depicts an evolving Omani society that is still coming to grips with the post-colonial world and the abolition of slavery. It won the 2019 Man Booker International Prize.Plot SummaryThe plot for Celestial Bodies skips around in time, alternating between Abdallah’s reminiscences on a... Read Celestial Bodies Summary

Culture and Imperialism is a nonfiction book published in 1993 by the Palestinian American author and academic Edward Said. Originating from a series of lectures that Said delivered in 1985 and 1986, Culture and Imperialism is an expansion of the ideas set out in his groundbreaking earlier work, Orientalism. Considered one of the founders of the field of post-colonial studies, Said looks at how the formerly colonized margins influence the metropolitan centers, and vice versa... Read Culture and Imperialism Summary

Eaters of the Dead is a 1976 historical novel by Michael Crichton. Crichton (1942-2008) is known for his best-selling novels, many of which have been adapted into movies, as well as TV and filmmaking. His books include Jurassic Park, The Andromeda Strain, The Lost World, Prey, and Disclosure. Crichton also worked in filmmaking and in the TV industry, most notably on Westworld (writer, director), ER (creator), and on the Jurassic Park franchise based on his... Read Eaters Of The Dead Summary

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Frankenstein in Baghdad, written by Ahmed Saadawi, was originally published in Arabic in 2013; it was published in English in 2018 in a translation by Jonathan Wright. It is a modern, magical realist take on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, updated to take place in post-war, US-occupied Iraq. It won the International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2014. Plot SummaryIn Bataween, a neighborhood in Baghdad, Iraq, live a series of interrelated characters: Elishva, an old widow who... Read Frankenstein in Baghdad Summary

How Does It Feel to Be A Problem: Being Young and Arab in America (2008) is a nonfiction text by Brooklyn College English professor and Arab-American Moustafa Bayoumi. The title comes from W.E.B. Du Bois’s 1903 text, The Souls of Black Folk, wherein he directed this question toward the African-American experience. Following the stories of seven young ArabAmericans living in Brooklyn, and including their struggles after the 9/11 attacks, Bayoumi’s book suggests that present-day ArabAmericans absorb the... Read How Does It Feel to Be A Problem Summary

I Am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced tells the story of Nujood Ali, a Yemeni girl who is possibly the youngest divorcée in the world. Nujood published her biography, co-written with French journalist Delphine Minoui, in 2010, two years after her controversial divorce. The novel begins with an introduction to the country of Yemen and to Nujood’s story written by Delphine Minoui, the book’s second and adult writer. Minoui never specifies how she and Nujood... Read I Am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced Summary

Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10 (2007) is a military-themed memoir by former Navy SEAL, Marcus Luttrell, with the help of ghostwriter Patrick Robinson. Based on a 2005 mission in Afghanistan, the book examines the intricacies of warfare. The narrative explores themes such as valor, self-sacrifice, and the multifaceted nature of combat. The book became a New York Times bestseller and subsequently inspired a 2013... Read Lone Survivor Summary

My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel is a 2013 work of historical nonfiction by Israeli author and journalist Ari Shavit. It was a New York Times Bestseller in 2013. Shavit’s book explains the history of Zionism in Palestine: its triumphs and tragedies, the creation of the Israeli state, Palestinian and Middle Eastern conflicts, and assessments of both Israeli and Jewish futures. Shavit combines Zionist history with first-hand reflections on pivotal moments. He... Read My Promised Land Summary

Tales from the Thousand and One Nights, also known as One Thousand and One Nights, is a collection of interconnected stories, an amalgamation of Arab, Persian, Indian, and other fairytales which were reshaped and retold by storytellers throughout the medieval Islamic world. The tales are akin to a Russian Matryoshka doll in that they begin with one story which leads the reader to a series of other cascading and interconnected stories. The tales end with... Read One Thousand and One Nights Summary

One of the foundational texts of postcolonial studies, Edward W. Said’s Orientalism was published in 1978. Up until this point, the term “Orientalism” was used to describe Western scholarship, thinking, and art about “the Orient,” generally Asia and the Middle East. In his book, Said interrogates both the term and ideology of Orientalism. He asserts that the West paints these cultures as exotic and “Other,” using essentialism and stereotypes to situate the West as superior... Read Orientalism Summary

Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return is the sequel to Marjane Satrapi’s bestselling graphic memoir, Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood, which was published in four volumes between 2000 and 2003. The early memoir documents Marjane’s childhood in Iran during the transition to fundamentalist Islamic control and concludes in her departure at age 14 in 1984. Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return was released in 2004 and documents the author’s teenage years in... Read Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return Summary

Prisoner of Tehran is a memoir by Marina Nemat that recounts her harrowing experiences in an Iranian prison post-1979 revolution, highlighting The Impact of Political and Ideological Repression. Through her narrative, Nemat explores The Challenges Faced by Women Under Authoritarian Regimes, illustrating the severe constraints and injustices they endured. Despite these adversities, her story is a testament to The Resilience of the Human Spirit, which showcases her journey of survival and defiance against oppressive forces.This... Read Prisoner of Tehran Summary

Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books is a memoir by Iranian American author Azar Nafisi, first released to widespread critical and popular acclaim in 2003. The memoir recalls Nafisi’s experiences living and teaching in Iran after the 1979 revolution that created the Islamic Republic of Iran, until her eventual exile in the United States in 1997. At the center of the memoir is Nafisi’s account of a secret book club she hosted during... Read Reading Lolita in Tehran Summary

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In her memoir, Tasting the Sky: A Palestinian Childhood (2007), Palestinian-American author and poet Ibtisam Barakat describes her early childhood in Palestine during the Six-Day War of 1967 and the life-changing effects that follow this pivotal event. Combining richly descriptive prose and free-verse poetry, Ibtisam shares often painful memories of childhood losses, from her home and sense of security to her childhood innocence. Writing from a child’s perspective, Ibtisam transcends politics to poignantly highlight how... Read Tasting the Sky Summary

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The Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East is a biography and work of historical nonfiction written by Sandy Tolan and published in 2006. Against the backdrop of the first Arab-Israeli War’s 50th anniversary, American journalist Sandy Tolan traveled to the Middle East to research his assignment. Through the biography, Tolan aims to highlight how two families on opposite sides of the conflict—the Khairis and the Eshkenazis—are connected on... Read The Lemon Tree Summary

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In The Secret Chord (2015), Geraldine Brooks, a former journalist and a Pulitzer Prize-winning author of historical fiction, turns to the story of the biblical King David. She uses this figure from religion and history to study human nature. Her David is far from a saint. He is a complex character: “a man who dwelt in the searing glance of the divine, but who sweated and stank, rutted without restraint, butchered the innocent, betrayed those... Read The Secret Chord Summary

The Septembers of Shiraz (2007), a novel by Iranian writer Dalia Sofer, recounts the experiences of the Amins, an Iranian Jewish family, during the Iranian Revolution in the late 1970s. The book is closely based on Sofer’s family history: When Sofer was 10, her family fled Iran, crossing the border to Turkey with the help of smugglers. The Septembers of Shiraz depicts the changing atmosphere and events that characterize the treatment of the wealthy class... Read The Septembers Of Shiraz Summary

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Lila Abu-Lughod’s Veiled Sentiments: Honor and Poetry in a Bedouin Society, first published in 1986, is the anthropologist’s first ethnography on the Awlad ‘Ali Bedouin peoples of North Africa. Over years of research and ‘ishra (living with) the Awlad ‘Ali, Abu-Lughod, initially interested in women’s experiences in the community, is drawn to poetry, specifically that which women recite in intimate, private settings. As she lives in and learns from the villagers, she explores the purpose... Read Veiled Sentiments Summary

War, a battle journal by best-selling reporter and filmmaker Sebastian Junger, describes a year in the rugged highlands of Afghanistan with a platoon of American soldiers who face the worst fighting and toughest conditions of any unit in the US military. Published in 2010, the book describes months of mind-numbing danger, multiple firefights per day, injuries and deaths, and matter-of-fact heroism. The men display extreme toughness, gallows humor, and intense mutual loyalty despite the nearly... Read War Summary

Woman at Point Zero, also titled Firdaus, is a 1975 novella by Nawal El Saadawi based on the true account of a woman named Firdaus who was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in 1974. Saadawi was a prolific Egyptian feminist and physician, and she worked with Egyptian women who experienced various mental conditions that Saadawi saw largely as resulting from living in a patriarchal society. She had the privilege of meeting Firdaus on... Read Woman at Point Zero Summary