Maghrib has come, the sun went down, The shine is left on your face. Maghrib has come, your face Shines more beautiful because of the sun. I would like to warm myself In the beauty of your face – Bosnian folksong When it comes to exploring the Muslim identity in the realm of fiction, one…
THE SPARTAN COURTAbdelouahab Aissaoui Dar Min, 2018 โ Fiction โ 388 pages The Spartan Court follows the interconnected lives of five characters in Algiers from 1815 to 1833. The first, Dupond, is a French journalist covering the colonial campaign against Algeria, the second, Caviard, is a former soldier in Napoleonโs army who finds himself a…
Written by the winner of the International Prize for Arabic Fiction, Saud Alsanousiโs Mama Hissa’s Mice is an apocalyptic and caustically funny novel about the power of friendship in a war-torn world. Mama Hissaโs Mice was a banned book in Kuwait, where the book is set, for over four years. Mama Hissa’s Mice,ย published originally in…
Personal Reflections on theย Novel by a Palestinian-American reader. A Woman is No Man is the novel that weaves together a three-generational Palestinian-American immigrant to the first-generation experience. The family happens to be Muslim. There is a scene in the book where Israa (one of the main characters in the novel) is told she does not…
GUANTANAMO VOICES:ย True Accounts from the World’s Most Infamous PrisonSarah Mirk Comics & Graphic Novelsย –ย 208 pages An anthology of illustrated narratives about the prison and the lives it changed forever.ย In January 2002, the United States sent a group of Muslim men they suspected of terrorism to a prison in Guantรกnamo Bay. They were the first of…
To tell the truth, on the face of a tyrant, is a brave act. This book is an act of revelation. Gowhar’s book is a result of more than a decade of his journalistic career. Research and his personal experience of Kashmir makes him own the narrative. Authoritative and emotional, Kashmir โ Rage and Reason…
โAzadiโ contains several essays in which Roy gives us a powerful but partial look at the situation in Kashmir. Azadi: Freedom. Fascism. Fiction. is a collection of essays written by Arundhati Roy through the eyes of a novelist. These essays were written between 2018 and 2020, two years that in India have felt like two…
FUTURE TENSENitasha KaulHarper Collins, 2020Fiction, General – 308 pages The son of a former militant, Fayaz is an aimless bureaucrat whose marriage to his wife Zeenat has broken down. His nephew Imran is a young student, a misfit in Srinagar, hoping to join a new kind of spectacular resistance. Shireen, the granddaughter of a spy,…
Rave reviews apart, veterinarian Shabir Ahmad Mirโs debut novel is poetry without rhyme. The Plague Upon Us is not about the rampaging coronavirus crippling the world and making billions captives in their homes, including 8 million lockdown-stricken Kashmiris. Itโs a plague that has consumed the life in Kashmir since 1947. This is a story of…
It is not that the meaning cannot be explained. But there are certain meanings that are lost forever the moment they are explained in words. Haruki Murakami, 1Q84 In the beginning, he was my go-to recommendation when people asked for recommendations but over time I realized that Iโm blindly recommending a writer to anyone who…