Middle East Fiction

A best-selling book when it appeared in Arabic, The Others is a literary tour de force, offering a window into one of the most repressive societies in the world. Seba al-Herz tells the story of a nameless teenager at a girls' school in the heavily Shi'ite Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. Like her classmates, she has no contact with men outside her family. When the glamorous Dai tries to seduce her, her feelings of guilt are overcome by an overwhelming desire for sexual and emotional intimacy.

Alibabà e i quaranta ladroni è una delle più celebri favole tratte dalla famosa raccolta "Le mille e una notte". Racconta di un ragazzo coraggioso e valoroso, Alibabà, e di Jamir, il suo fidato ed intelligente asinello...

Michel Galabru raconte la fameuse histoire d'Ali Baba qui par hasard, entend le chef des quarante voleurs prononcer la formule magique qui permet d'ouvrir une porte dans la roche...

Aladin est le fils d'un pauvre tailleur appelé Mustapha. Il va au centre de la terre chercher une lampe magique qui renferme un génie qui a le pouvoir d'exaucer les vœux. Un jour il s'éprend d'une princesse.

Discover the endless fascination of ancient Arabian culture with six ancient tales we selected for you for their power of evocation, wisdom and humor. These stories are from the "Arabian Nights", also known as "One Thousand and One Nights", which is a collection of much more ancient folk tales, fairy tales and poems collected over the centuries. They come from ancient and medieval Arabic, Persian, Mesopotamian, Indian, and Egyptian folklore and literature. This makes "The Arabian Nights" a priceless treasure, as it takes us to the very roots of humanity's cultural treasures in a delightful and passionate way.

Israeli Independence Day is coming up and the mayor is planning a celebration. He asks Shmulik to make a mural in the park, and Shmulik agrees. But he can't decide what to paint! Maybe his dog, Ezra, can help!

New York City's Israel Parade is extra special this year for 'timid and small' Meg Goldberg. This shy little girl with a big imagination finds plenty of ways to join the fun - and maybe, just maybe, earn the grand marshal's crown.

What will the hare and the tortoise see as they race across Israel from Tel Aviv to the Dead Sea?

There is something of both the absolutely spectacular and positively disgraceful about Tehran. But most writers around the world are inclined to think that their own sprawling metropolis is the capital of every imaginable vice and crime, of impossible love and tenderness and cruelty and malice in measures that seldom exist anywhere else. For me, Tehran's case is no different - except that there really is a difference here. The city may be a hothouse of decadence, a den of inequity, all that. But it still exists under the watchful eye of a very unique entity, the Islamic Republic.

From Tehran to Los Angeles, The Luminous Heart of Jonah S. is a sweeping saga that tells the story of the Soleymans, an Iranian Jewish family tormented for decades by Raphael's Son, a crafty and unscrupulous financier who has futilely claimed to be an heir to the family's fortune. Forty years later in contemporary Los Angeles, Raphael's Son has nearly achieved his goal - until he suddenly disappears, presumed by many to have been murdered. The possible suspects are legion.

Un jour, un homme se voit offrir une malle par son ami. Comme il n'a rien à mettre dedans il s'y met lui-même, et la malle s'envole et l'emmène en Turquie.

Since the passing of their father, Oscar has tried—and in his little brother Sufyan’s eyes, failed—to be the man of his family of Syrian refugees. As Oscar waits in line for rations, longing for the books he left behind when his family fled their home, Sufyan explores more nontraditional methods to provide for his family. Ignoring his brother’s warnings, Sufyan gets more and more involved with a group that provides him with big rewards for doing seemingly inconsequential tasks.

The summer of 1990 started out fine. Reem was about to enter his Junior year, and the architectural degree would put him on track to achieve his 5-year plan. Life in California was different from his childhood as the second son of a Kuwaiti millionaire. He loved USC. August 2, 1990, everything changed. Reem had worked hard to hide his wealth. He just wanted to be a regular college kid. Finding a girlfriend wasn't part of the plan, but he adored Sarah. She wasn't what his mother would have wanted for him, but then in an instant, none of that mattered.

¡Es el primer día de clases de Rashin en Estados Unidos! Todo tiene diferentes formas de lo que está acostumbrada, desde las comidas en su desayuno hasta las letras en sus libros ¡Y las familias de sus compañeros vienen de todos los rincones del mundo! La nueva maestra le pide a cada estudiante que se imagine la forma de su hogar en un mapa. Rashin sabe qué dirá de inmediato ¡Irán tiene forma de gato! ¿Qué irán a decir los otros niños? ¿Y qué hay del país de donde viene TU familia?

Fifteen-year-old Charlotte is restlessly coming of age in early twentieth-century Basra, Iraq. The daughter of a Seattle doctor and missionary, Charlotte craves an adventure of her own making. Just the thought of the steppes, hills, valleys, and the winding river stirs Charlotte’s imagination and sends her compass of flight dancing. So, preferring the wondrous unknown to solicitude, Charlotte packs up copies of her father’s Gospels and a statue of the Baby Jesus and runs away.

At the start of 1991, 11-year-old Ali Fadhil was consumed by his love for soccer, video games, and American television shows. Then, on January 17, Iraq's dictator, Saddam Hussein, went to war with 34 nations led by the United States. Over the next 43 days, Ali and his family survived bombings, food shortages, and constant fear. Ali and his brothers played soccer on the abandoned streets of their Basra neighborhood, wondering when or if their medic father would return from the war front. Cinematic, accessible, and timely, this is the story of one ordinary kid's view of life during war.

A groundbreaking collection of essays by celebrated international writers bears witness to the human cost of 50 years of Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. In Kingdom of Olives and Ash, Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman, two of today's most renowned novelists and essayists, have teamed up with the Israeli NGO Breaking the Silence and a host of illustrious writers to tell the stories of the people on the ground in the contested territories.

Israeli kids and their aunt observe the holiday of Tisha B'Av, which commemorates the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, by visiting an archaeological dig at the Temple Mount and participating in their own hands-on dig.

Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts bricht der berühmte Schriftsteller Gustave Flaubert zu einer fast zweijährigen Reise in den Orient auf. In seiner umfangreichen Korrespondenz mit Verwandten und Freunden schildert er regionale Begebenheiten, kulturelle Eindrücke sowie allerhand Erlebnisse und liefert so schmackhafte Anekdoten über seine Zeit und persönliche Einblicke in sein Seelenleben. Der Orient-Briefe zweiter Teil.

Saleh Abdoh, the narrator of Out of Mesopotamia, is a middle-aged Iranian journalist who moonlights as a writer for one of Iran's most popular TV shows, but cannot keep himself away from the front lines in neighboring Iraq and Syria. There, the fight against the Islamic State is a proxy war, an existential battle, a declaration of faith, and, for some, a passing weekend affair. After weeks spent dodging RPGs and witnessing acts of savagery and stupidity, he returns to his civilian life of Tehran bookstore readings and trendy art openings, finding it to be unbearably dislocating.