CMES Emerging Voices from the Middle East Series by Ghada Abdel Aal, وليد طاهر, أحمد ناجي, Ahmed Naji, Ayman Al Zorkany, Sonia Nimr

The rules may differ from country to country, but the dating game is a universal constant.After years of searching for Mr. Right in living-room meetings arranged by family or friends, Ghada Abdel Aal, a young Egyptian professional, decided to take to the blogosphere to share her experiences and vent her frustrations at being young, single, and female in Egypt. Her blog, I Want to Get Married!, quickly became a hit with both men and women in the Arab world... moreThe rules may differ from country to country, but the dating game is a universal constant.After years of searching for Mr. Right in living-room meetings arranged by family or friends, Ghada Abdel Aal, a young Egyptian professional, decided to take to the blogosphere to share her experiences and vent her frustrations at being young, single, and female in Egypt. Her blog, I Want to Get Married!, quickly became a hit with both men and women in the Arab world. With a keen sense of humor and biting social commentary, Abdel Aal recounts in painful detail her adventures with failed proposals and unacceptable suitors. There's Mr. Precious, who storms out during their first meeting when he feels his favorite athlete has been slighted, and another suitor who robs her in broad daylight, to name just a few of the characters she runs across in her pursuit of wedded bliss.I Want to Get Married! has since become a best-selling book in Egypt and the inspiration for a television series. This witty look at dating challenges skewed representations of the Middle East and presents a realistic picture of what it means to be a single young woman in the Arab world, where, like elsewhere, a good man can be hard to find. less

Award-winning Egyptian children's author and illustrator Walid Taher targets a wider audience with A Bit of Air. Inspired by the long tradition of Egyptian colloquial poetry and its relation to social and political movements in Egypt, Taher creates a unique blend of visual art, poetry, and architecture. These darkly humorous poems and their accompanying images are snapshots of a state of mind and a space of fantasy that convey the absurd, the comical, the profound, and the idiosyncratic... moreAward-winning Egyptian children's author and illustrator Walid Taher targets a wider audience with A Bit of Air. Inspired by the long tradition of Egyptian colloquial poetry and its relation to social and political movements in Egypt, Taher creates a unique blend of visual art, poetry, and architecture. These darkly humorous poems and their accompanying images are snapshots of a state of mind and a space of fantasy that convey the absurd, the comical, the profound, and the idiosyncratic.This illustrated, bilingual edition comes at a time of political and literary upheaval. An unprecedented number of Arab authors are producing new and noteworthy works by appropriating the language of blogs, poetry, comic strips, and film, to name a few. This mixing of media gives shape to new experiences emerging from and redefining a rapidly changing social and political reality. A new generation is ushering in a new language, a new literature, and a new Arab world. less

Upon its initial release in Arabic in the fall of 2014, Using Life received acclaim in Egypt and the wider Arab world. But in 2016, Ahmed Naji was sentenced to two years in prison after a reader complained that an excerpt published in a literary journal harmed public morality. His imprisonment marks the first time in modern Egypt that an author has been jailed for a work of literature... moreUpon its initial release in Arabic in the fall of 2014, Using Life received acclaim in Egypt and the wider Arab world. But in 2016, Ahmed Naji was sentenced to two years in prison after a reader complained that an excerpt published in a literary journal harmed public morality. His imprisonment marks the first time in modern Egypt that an author has been jailed for a work of literature. Writers and literary organizations around the world rallied to support Naji, and he was released in December 2016, though he faced trial again in April 2017 for charges stemming from the original accusation.Set in modern-day Cairo, Using Life follows a young filmmaker, Bassam Bahgat, after a secret society hires him to create a series of documentary films about the urban planning and architecture of Cairo. The plot in which Bassam finds himself ensnared unfolds in the novel's unique mix of text and black-and-white illustrations.The Society of Urbanists, Bassam discovers, is responsible for centuries of world-wide conspiracies that have shaped political regimes, geographical boundaries, reigning ideologies, and religions. It is responsible for today's Cairo, and for everywhere else, too. Yet its methods are subtle and indirect: it operates primarily through manipulating urban architecture, rather than brute force. As Bassam immerses himself in the Society and its shadowy figures, he finds Cairo on the brink of a planned apocalypse, designed to wipe out the whole city and rebuild anew. less

The Thunderbird trilogy is a fast-paced time-traveling fantasy adventure centered on Noor, a young orphaned Palestinian girl who starts in the present and must go back in time to get four magical bird feathers and save the world. Aided by a djinn cat and girls who look identical to Noor and who each have one of the bird’s powers, in this initial volume Noor begins her journey through different historical periods, striving to keep the wall between worlds intact.