1. Alaa Al Aswani. The Yacoubian Building. New York: Harper Collins, 2006.
The book evokes very important problems that are typical for the modern Arab
world. The book reveals the political corruption, religious extremism and modern
hopes of Egyptian people. Basically the plot of the story is focused on the
Yacoubian building where al the humanity reside. This was an elegant temple
of Art Deco splendour that at the present moment is slowly decaying in the smog
and bustle of downtown Cairo. The author manages to depict various layers of
the modern Cairo society from a fading aristocrat and self proclaimed scientist
of women, to a devout young student feeling the irresistible pull toward fundamentalism.
The author also successfully depicts a corrupt and corpulent politician that
twists Koran to justify his desires. Being full of controversies the book still
is an important window on to the experience of loss and love in the Arab world.
At the same time the book will be obviously interesting of r older students
who are interested in the real human feelings and emotions such as love and
loss but, at the same time, are able to understand the depth of the book and
fully catch the general picture of the modern society the author skilfully depicts
in his book. It is important to underline that the author depicts the modern
society on the background of the historical heritage of Egyptian people.
2. O.Z. Livaneli. Bliss. New York: St Martin Press, 2006.
The author focuses his attention on the life of a young Turkish girl whose problems,
in actuality, may be similar to those that modern American students have but
set in a different socio-cultural context. Left in the barn to hang herself
for her uncle raped her, 15 year-old Meryem defies local tradition and refuses
to do it. Her cousin Cemal, recently a soldier in army, who grew up with her
in a tiny village in eastern Turkey, is sent to take her in Istanbul and is
told to kill her on the way. On the train, Meryem eyes are open to city women
who wear modern dress and speak and eat in front of men. Cemal cannot kill her,
and after a short stay with his brother in Istanbul, he goes to a war buddy
who gives them a place of temporary refuge, a fish farm on a cove in western
Turkey. Here they meet a professor who has run away from his privileged life
in Istanbul and is living on a large sailboat. He invites the two cousins to
join him that gives the new direction to their life. Teens will be drawn to
the plight of a girl who has been raped and is then treated as a perpetrator
of the crime. The author village life and modern city life as two separate realities
that coexist in Turkey today. This book will be particularly interesting for
students interested in human rights and global studies.
3. Yasmina Khadra. The Attack. New York: Doubleday Publishing, 2006
In this book the author deals with an extremely important problem that is particularly
serious nowadays, the problem of terrorism and its possible causes. The author
has an ability to convey that sense of unrelenting anxiety that may indeed be
the object of terrorism. The novel concerns the Dr Amin Jaafari, an esteemed
surgeon of Arab-Bedouin descend who has worked against odds to become a relatively
well-appointed citizen of Tel-Aviv. In an instant, the doctor’s life is
turned inside out by a suicide bomb attack near the hospital where he practices.
The very worst of it comes when he learns that his beloved wife, who perished
in the attack, is believed to be one who is actually carried out the bombing.
Incensed by this accusation, Amin rejects the idea that their idyllic marriage
may not have been all that it seemed. His relentless search for the truth leads
him back to the place from his past, and the story comes full circle. This could
prove to be a book of some importance owing to its fine technique and relevance
to the current world affairs. In fact, the book is really noteworthy as the
work that may be viewed as a warning against terrorism that may be nearby and
terrorists may be people who are nearby.
4. Hisham Matar. In the Country of Men. New York: Random House, 2006.
This novel is set in 1979. The book tells the story of Suleiman, a Lybian boy
whose family and friends are targeted as anti-revolutionaries by the repressive
government of Muammar Qaddafi, known to his people as the Guardian. In this
waking nightmare of how the government saws fear, turning its subjects against
one another, men are arrested and disappear. Some are eliminated in a horrifying
public execution before a gleeful stadium crowd – an event broadcast live
on television. Only nine years old, Suleiman grapples with understanding who
the real traitors are, and he finds himself guilty of betraying his friends
in an environment of suspicion in which the government monitors every movement
and conversation. The most memorable thing in this book is the relationship
between Suleiman and his young mother. Suleiman wants to save her from depression
that plague her in a country hostile not only to her husband’s political
beliefs but also to her gender. She still suffers the lost of her dreams after
entering an arranged marriage at 15. The author portrays their relationship
in intimate, realistic and heartbreaking scenes. This book will be particularly
interesting for students interested in human rights. Also this book provides
a perfect overview of the position of women in Middle Eastern world as well
as local traditions that differ substantially from Western norms. This is why
this will help better understand the norms and standards of behaviour of Middle
Eastern students.
5. Orhan Pamuk. Snow. New York: Knopf Publishing Group, 2006.
The book focuses on the story of an artist who finds himself in Turkey facing
a variety of challenges of the severe reality. This is the story of a Turkish
poet who spent 12 years as a political exile in Germany who witnesses firsthand
the clash between radical Islam and Western ideas. Ka’s reasons for visiting
a small Turkish town of Kars are twofold: curiosity about the rash of suicides
by young girls in the town and a hope to reconnect with the beautiful Ipek,
whom he knew as a youth. But Kars is a tangle of poverty-stricken families,
Kurdish separatists, political Islamists, including Ipek’s spirited sister
Kadife, and Ka finds himself making compromises with all in a desperate play
for his own happiness. Ka encounters government officials, idealistic students,
leftist theater groups and the charismatic and perhaps terrorist blue while
trying to convince Ipek to return to Germany with him. Each conversation pits
warring ideologies against each other and against Ka’s own melancholy.
While in Kars, the normally reticent Ka dares to approach happiness, when once
he suffered a terrible writer’s block, his poems now flow effortlessly,
and his new-found love seems to love him back, but the figure of Blue and the
deep waters in which Ka has emerged himself threaten his promising future. The
book is full of details concerning the country’s background, it takes
some time to introduce all the characters. Once everyone is in place, however,
the novel picks up and ultimately is a worthwhile read for those interested
in religion and religious extremism studies.
6. Orhan Pamuk. My Name is Red. New York: Knopf Publishing, 2002.
This book is actually a historical novel. The author set the story in the 16th
century Turkey, at the tipping point when the Ottoman Empire was being transformed
from the world’s most feared superpower into an imperial backwater. The
novel works on three levels. As a murder mystery, it asks who killed a gilder
named Elegant, employed by atelier of miniaturists, and then Enishte, the man
who was funding the atelier. On another level this is the story of ideas. In
coffeehouses frequented by poets and artists, the backwash from the European
Renaissance is starting to call into question fundamental principle of Islamic
culture. Enishte, in particular, has become enamored of the perspectival method
favored by Venetian painters, and wants his artists to achieve a comparable
representation of reality, rather than abiding by traditional rules of representation.
The author not only immerses readers in this debate but he makes the pictures
of dogs, Satan, gold coins, etc. imitating the shadow-play method of traveling
storytellers. His own ability to draw stunning pictures makes Istanbul as grimly
vivid as Raskolnikov’s St Petersburg. On the third level, this is a love
story. Black, a clerk and Enishte’s nephew, must win Enishte’s beautiful
daughter, the widowed Shekure. In fact, the author creates the novel with colorful
characters and provides a palpable sense of the atmosphere of the Ottoman Empire
that history and literary fans will appreciate this book.
7. Orhan Pamuk. The Black Book. New York: Knopf Publishing Group, 2006.
The book actually represents a modern mystery setting in 1990. When Galip Cey’s
wife disappears, Galip suspects she may be with her ex-husband – voluntarily
or not – so he assumes a man’s identity and to investigate. This
book is steeped in sense and sites of Istanbul and is in fact very specific.
But imagery and detail will suffice most readers to keep reading. However, it
should be said that the story of attorney Galip and his missing wife, Ruya,
is allowed to drag despite an interesting intrigue that has Galip is suspicious
that Ruya is hiding with her half-brother, a popular journalist. Galip assumes
the identity of the half brother with unfortunate consequences. Only the stalwart
will make it to the end. Obviously the book is quite complicated but at the
same time it provides readers with a profound view on the complex relationship
within Turkish family and the existing system of interpersonal relationships.
This will naturally help students better understand the socio-cultural reality
of the modern Turkey.
8. Marjane Satrapi. Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood. New York: Knopf Publishing
Group, 2004.
The book is an autobiographical novel which is a timely and timeless story of
a young girl’s life under the Islamic revolution. Descended from the last
Emperor of Iran, Satrapi is nine when fundamentalist rebels overthrow the Shah.
While Satrapi’s radical parents and their community initially welcome
the ouster, they soon learn a new brand of totalitarianism is taking over. Satrapi’s
art is minimal and stark yet often charming and humorous as it depicts the madness
around her. She idolizes those who were imprisoned by the Shah, fascinated by
their takes of torture, and bonds with her uncle Anoosh, only to see the new
regime imprison and eventually kill him. Thank to Iran-Iraq war, neighbors homes
are bombed, playmates are killed and parties are forbidden. Satrapi’s
parents, who once lived in luxury despite their politics, struggle to educate
their daughter. Her father briefly considers fleeing to America, only to realize
the price would be too great. “I can’t become a taxi driver and
you a cleaning lady?” he asks his wife. Iron Maiden, Nike, and Michael
Jackson become precious symbols of freedom, and eventually Satrapi’s rebellious
streak puts her in danger, as even educated women are threatened with beatings
for improper attire. Despite the grimness, Satrapi never lapses into sensationalism
or sentimentality. Skillfully presenting a child’s view of war and her
own shifting ideals, she also shows everyday life in Tehran and her family’s
pride and love for their country despite the tumultuous times. Powerfully understated,
this book will be quite useful for students’ understanding of the reality
of Iranian life and the consequences of religious fundamentalism leading to
intolerance, violation of human rights and permanent oppression of dissidents.
The book is particularly noteworthy in regard to the position of women in Iran
and their rights which are obvious oppressed. It is also extremely important
that the author has managed to convey the entire story from the point of view
of a child facing the problems of the adult world.
9. Elif Shafak. The Bastard of Istanbul. New York: Penguin Group, 2006.
In this book the author confronts her country’s violent past in a vivid
and colorful tale set in both Turkey and the United States. At its center is
the bastard of the title, Asya, a nineteen year old woman who loves Johnny Cash
and the French Existentialists, and the four sisters of the Kazanci family who
all live together in an extended household in Istanbul: Zehilla, the zestful,
headstrong youngest sister who runs a tattoo parlor and is Asya’s mother;
Banu, who has newly discovered herself as a clairvoyant; Cevriye, a widowed
high school teacher; and Feride, a hypochondriac obsessed with impending disaster.
Their one estranged brother lives in Arizona with his wife and her Armenian
daughter, Armanoush. When Armanoush secretly flies to Istanbul in search of
her identity, she finds the Kazanci sisters and becomes fast friends with Asya.
A secret is discovered that links the two families and ties them to the 1915
Armenian deportations and massacres. Full of vigorous, unforgettable female
characters the book perfectly illustrates the complexity of life in both Turkey
and the US of people originating from Turkey. The author raises the problem
of ethnic intolerance and discrimination reminding about the tragedy of Armenian
people and the necessity of finding national identity in the modern globalized
world.
10. Ahdaf Soueif. Map of Love. New York: First Anchor Books, 2000.
This book reveals the authors ability to combine the romantic skills of the
19th century novelist with a very modern sense of culture and politics. The
main characters set in either ends of the twenty century. The main characters
are two women that fall in love with men outside their familiar worlds. In 1901,
Anna Winterbourne, recently widowed, leaves England for Egypt, an outpost of
the British Empire roiling with nationalist sentiments. Far from the comfort
of the British colony, she finds herself enraptured by the real Egypt and is
in love with Sharif Pasha al-Baroudi. Nearly a hundred years later, Isabel Parkman,
a divorced American journalist and descendant of Anna and Sharif, has fallen
in love with a gifted and difficult Egyptian-American conductor with his own
passionate politics. In an attempt to understand her conflicting emotions and
to discover the truth behind her heritage, Isabel, too, travels to Egypt, where
she gradually unravels the story of Anna and Sharif’s love. Obviously
this book is quite a romantic story which though refers to very important problems
of the search of the national and cultural identity and, what is more it raises
the question of co-existence of different nations to the extent that the author
attempts to show how it is actually possible to develop the positive relationship
between representative of different ethnic groups, which have different political
and philosophical views. It is quite noteworthy that throughout this story love
is dominating over the existing political contradictions in views of the main
characters of the novel.
