Women of Sand and Myrrh

Women of Sand and Myrrh

Author: Hanan al-Shaykh

Publisher: Anchor

Published: 2013-04-10

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 0307831124

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A powerful and moving novel, by the Arab world's leading woman novelist, about four women coping with the insular, oppressive society of an unnamed desert state.


I Sweep the Sun Off Rooftops

I Sweep the Sun Off Rooftops

Author: Hanan al-Shaykh

Publisher: Anchor

Published: 2013-04-03

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 0307766624

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Since the U.S. publication of Women of Sand and Myrrh--which has now sold more than 35,000 copies and was selected as one of the Fifty Best Books of 1992 by Publishers Weekly--Hanan al-Shaykh has attracted an ever larger following for her dazzling tales of contemporary Arab women. In these seventeen short stories--eleven of which are appearing in English for the first time--al-Shaykh expands her horizons beyond the boundaries of Lebanon, taking us throughout the Middle East, to Africa, and finally to London. Stylistically diverse, her stories are often about the shifting and ambiguous power relationships between different cultures--as well as between men and women. Often compared to both Margaret Atwood and Margaret Drabble, Hanan al-Shaykh is "a gifted and courageous writer" (Middle Eastern International).


Women of Sand and Myrrh

Women of Sand and Myrrh

Author: Ḥanān Shaykh

Publisher:

Published: 1991

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13: 9780044422754

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With consummate story-teling skill al-Shaykh explores the lives of four Arab desert women in this bestselling novel


The Occasional Virgin

The Occasional Virgin

Author: Hanan al-Shaykh

Publisher: Anchor

Published: 2018-07-10

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 1524747521

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On a sunny beach on the Italian Riviera, two thirtysomething women, Yvonne and Huda, relax by the sparkling sea. But despite the setting, as their vacation unfolds, their complicated pasts seep through to the idyllic present. Both women spent their childhoods in Lebanon—Yvonne raised in a Christian family, Huda in a Muslim one—and they now find themselves torn between the traditional worlds they were born into and the successful professional identities they’ve created. Three months later, when Huda (a theater director from Toronto) visits Yvonne (an advertising executive) in London, a chance encounter with a man at Speaker’s Corner leads to profound repercussions for them both, as each woman undertakes her own quest for romance, revenge, and fulfillment. Witty and wry, The Occasional Virgin is a poignant and perceptive story of the tumultuous lives and sometimes shocking choices of two women successful in their careers but unlucky in love.


Only in London

Only in London

Author: Hanan al-Shaykh

Publisher: Anchor

Published: 2007-12-18

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 0307427137

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Four strangers meet on a turbulent flight from Dubai to London: Amira, a canny Moroccan prostitute; Lamis, a 30-year old Iraqi divorcee; Nicholas, an English expert on Islamic art; and Samir, a Lebanese man who is delivering a monkey on a mission he doesn’t fully understand. Once safely on British soil, Lamis and Nicholas fall in love, Samir chases after blond British youths, and Amira reinvents herself as a princess, the better to lure clients at the best London hotels. Through the city and across cultural borders, Only in London wittily portrays the smells, sounds, and sights of London’s lively Arab neighorhoods, as well as the freedoms the city both offers and withholds from its immigrants.


Women of Sand and Myrrh

Women of Sand and Myrrh

Author: Hanan Al-Shaykh

Publisher: Turtleback Books

Published: 1992-07-01

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 9781417710843

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Little is known of what life is like for contemporary Arab women living in the Middle East. One of the few literary voices speaking out from that still closed society is Hanan al-Shaykh, whose novel The Story of Zahra was banned in most Arab countries. Now available for the first time in the U.S. is her newest novel, a story of four women treated to every luxury but freedom.


One Thousand and One Nights

One Thousand and One Nights

Author: Hanan al-Shaykh

Publisher: A&C Black

Published: 2014-03-10

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 1408174731

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One of the world's great folk story-cycles adapted for the stage by leading theatre maker Tim Supple, from the stories written by the seminal Lebanese novelist Hanan al-Shaykh. This unique edition will unlock the ancient tales for a new generation of readers and performers. Written by Arabic writers from tales gathered in India, Persia and across the great Arab Empire, the One Thousand and One Nights are the never-ending stories told by Shahrazad night after night, under sentence of death, to the king Shahrayar who has vowed to marry a virgin every night and kill her in the morning. Shahrazad prolongs her life by keeping the King engrossed in a web of stories that never ends - a fascinating kaleidoscope of life, love and destiny. The tales that unfold are erotic, violent, supernatural and endlessly surprising. The web of tales woven by Shahrazad were exoticised and bowdlerised in the West under the title of the Arabian Nights. This adaptation unearths the true character of One Thousand and One Nights as it is in the oldest Arabic manuscripts. In turns erotic, brutal, witty, poetic and complex, the tales tell of love and marriage, power and punishment, rich and poor, and the endless trials and uncertainties of fate. The great cities and thriving trade routes of the Islamic world provide the setting for these stories that employ supernatural mystery and intense realism to portray the deep and endless drama of human experience.


The Locust and the Bird

The Locust and the Bird

Author: Hanan Al-Shaykh

Publisher: A&C Black

Published: 2010-04-05

Total Pages: 305

ISBN-13: 1408810875

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A richly woven and breathtaking memoir from the perspective of the author's own mother: a Radio 4 Book of the Week 'It is an extraordinarily brave act for a writer to undertake to inhabit, fully and sympathetically, the life her mother lived before she was born, particularly when her mother was no jewel of wifely virtue' J.M. Coetzee 'This is a book that wears its heart firmly on its sleeve, offering an insight into an unfamiliar culture and a cinematic love story' The Times Kamila is nine years old when she is taken from the poverty of her childhood village in southern Lebanon to Beirut. She has never learned to read or write, though she longs to go to school. Stories, poetry and film are her passion - and a beautiful boy called Muhammad. They fall in love before Kamila is forced into an arranged marriage, despite her tears and screams. She is only fourteen years old. On her wedding night her first daughter is conceived; four years later, Hanan is born. Kamila and Muhammad continue to see each other in secret, risking their lives. It is eight years before Kamila can bring herself to divorce her husband, as to do so means leaving her daughters behind. Beautifully evoking the dusty streets of Beirut and life in Lebanon, this is a heartbreaking memoir of an extraordinary woman.


Year of the Elephant

Year of the Elephant

Author: Barbara Parmenter

Publisher: University of Texas Press

Published: 2009-09-15

Total Pages: 172

ISBN-13: 9780292721722

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Includes glossary and interview with the author.


Beirut Blues

Beirut Blues

Author: Hanan al-Shaykh

Publisher: Anchor

Published: 2013-04-10

Total Pages: 385

ISBN-13: 0307831132

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With the acclaim won by her first two novels, Hanan al-Shaykh established herself as the Arab world's foremost woman writer. Beirut Blues, published to similar acclaim, further confirms her place in Arabic literature, and brings her writing to a new, groundbreaking level. The daring fragmented structure of this epistolary novel mirrors the chaos surrounding the heroine, Asmahan, as she futilely writes letters to her loved ones, to her friends, to Beirut, and to the war itself--letters of lament that are never to be answered except with their own resounding echoes. In Beirut Blues, Hanan al-Shaykh evokes a Beirut that has been seen by few, and that will never be seen again.