Halim Barakat, The Crane

The Crane by Halim Barakat is a short autobiographical prose work, its tone fluctuating between realism, interior monologue, poetic passages and political rhetoric. It begins as the narrator looks back on his childhood in the village of Kafrun in Syria and moves on to describe his travels and experiences as a student in the US …

Arab Women Writers (in English)

An old, updated list of works of fiction (and some non-fiction) in English by Arab (sometimes identified by others, sometimes self-identified) women writers. Useful books: Abdelrazek, Amal Talaat. Contemporary Arab American Women Writers: Hyphenated Identities and Border Crossings. Cambria Press. Print. Amireh, Amal, och Lisa Suhair Majaj. Going global: the transnational reception of Third World …

Taha Hussein: The Days

Taha Hussein's autobiography Al-Ayam, (The Days) originally serialised in Hilal and then published as a three-part book, is written in the third person, and as Roger Allen notes the book is given a touch of gentle irony by this sense of detachment from  the protagonist, who is described as "the boy"  and later "the young …