Arab Fiction Reveals a World Behind the News

Negative images from the Arab world fill the news each night, and Western pundits write reams of non-fiction analysis. Where's the insight that comes from Arab voices telling their own stories? I went in search of modern Arab fiction in English--and found frustratingly little available. Matt Rees, a Welsh journalist who covered the Middle East and became an Israel-based author of mysteries, summed up for The Guardian in 2010: "The Arab literary world and Western publishing don't cross over much...That comes at a cost to the West, because literature could be such an important bridge between two cultures so much at odds." Still, some recognized Arab authors have crossed over, and here are a few on my to-read list. I'll begin with Cities of Salt by Abdelrahman Munif. Munif, a Saudi Arabian with a doctorate in oil economics, was stripped of his Saudi citizenship for this tale of how the arrival of oil wealth brought social and psychological ruin to Bedouin villagers. Another social critique comes in The Yacoubian Building by Egyptian Alaa al-Aswany. Set in Cairo, both rich and poor characters face political and business corruption and injustice, including the sexual oppression of women and homosexuals. An especially timely read given ISIS recruiting is Wolf Dreams by Yasmina Khadra, the feminine pseudonym of a former Algerian military officer exiled in France. Khadra, who also writes mysteries by the way, tells the story of a striving young Algerian who is disillusioned by the West and joins a violent Islamist group, only to be repulsed in turn by their bloodthirsty corruption. Meanwhile, Rafik Schami's The Dark Side of Love is both a paean to Damascus and a murder mystery, and has been hailed as Syria's first great novel. If you can find it, read the Arab best-seller Utopia by Ahmed Khaled Towfik,  which reveals telling Arab fears about the direction of events: It's 2030, and in a dystopian future, at least for Arabs, Israel has built its own version of the Suez Canal and Middle Eastern oil is worthless because the U.S. has invented a new super-fuel. In Egypt, the wealthy have retreated to a U.S. Marine-protected colony, while the Others (the oppressed) live in Cairo. For more good books by Middle Eastern authors: http://www.amazon.com/gp/richpub/syltguides/fullview/R25UKN1F6Y4O7E