Beirut 39: New Writing from the Arab World
This fascinating collection of pieces by 39 young Arab voices from all over the world was put together by the Hay Festival in celebration of Beirut's 2009 selection as World Book Capital. Incorporating stories, poems, and novel excerpts, the enormously varied lineup includes Abdellah Taia's The Wounded Man, about a gay university student in Morocco watching a forbidden French film during Ramadan; an excerpt fromFrankenstein in Baghdadby Ahmad Saadwi, in which a garbage-diver searches for the perfect nose to complete the hybrid body he's assembling; and Haneef from Glasgow by Mohammad Hassan, in which a Kashmiri immigrant is viewed through the eyes of his Saudi employers' son. Nazem El Sayed contributes delightfully compact revelations in his Thirteen Poems; Randa Jarrar takes a tender look at a Palestinian boy in The Story of My Building; Hala Kawtharani explores the Beirut of the 1950s and '60s in Lebanon/Switzerland? Beirut/Paris? Because they are so involving and diverse, readers may be frustrated by the entries' brevity, though anyone working on their to-read list will find plenty of ideas.(June)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.