This autobiography by Palestinian intellectual Sari Nusseibeh, born in Damascus in 1948, educated in Philosphy at Oxford and Harvard, one-time faculty member of Hebrew University, appointed as administrator of Arab Jerusalem by Yasser Arafat,  and now professor and President of Al-Quds University, follows his earlier book, No Trumpets, No Drums:  A Two-State Settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.  Nusseibeh’s life reflects the modern history of Palestine from Al-Nakbah, through Al-Naqsah, to today’s struggle for the free and independent Palestine that was promised by the League of Nations and entrusted (alas!) to the British Mandate.   Buy here.

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Publisher Alfred A. Knopf published all of the 12 major works in English by Lebanese poet, artist and mystic, Kahlil (born “Khalil”) Gibran (1883-1931), collected here in hardcover.  These are not his “Complete Works,” however, because, although he wrote increasingly in English after immigration to Boston in 1995 and especially after settlement in New York in 1918, he also wrote in Arabic throughout his brilliant life of only 48 years.   The volume lacks notes and bibliography but makes  available the complete text of his dozen, widely-translated, English works, including The Prophet (1923).   Buy here.

This anthology, one of numerous volumes of writing by Arab writers from Interlink Books, presents 20 Arab-American poets (most of them living) in chronological order of the poet’s birth, from Ameen Rihani in 1876 to Elmaz Abinader in 1954 and including poetry by editors Gregory Orfalea and Sharif Elmusa themselves.  Feast on these well-wrapped morsels of poetry!    Buy here.

This volume of 112 poems with full, original, Arabic text (in handwriting of the iconic Syrian poet himself) and English language translation on facing pages is a treasure for all lovers, poetry lovers, and intermediate-level students of Arabic or English language!    Buy here.

Kahlil Gibran The Collected Works Everyman’s Library

For the first time, all the major works of this beloved writer are gathered together in one hardcover volume.
Poet, artist, and mystic, Kahlil Gibran was born in 1883 to a poor Christian family in Lebanon and immigrated to the United States as an adolescent. His masterpiece, The Prophet, a book of poetic essays that he began while still a youth in Lebanon, is one of the most cherished books of our time and has sold millions of copies in more than twenty languages since its publication in 1923. But all of Gibran’s works—essays, stories, parables, and prose poems—are imbued with equally powerful simplicity and wisdom, whether they are addressing marriage or children, friendship or grief, work or pleasure. Perhaps no other twentieth-century writer has touched the hearts and minds of so remarkably varied and widespread a readership.

Included in this volume are The Prophet, The Wanderer, Jesus the Son of Man, A Tear and a Smile, Spirits Rebellious, Nymphs of the Valley, Prose Poems, The Garden of the Prophet, The Earth Gods, Sand and Foam, The Forerunner, and The Madman.

Buy now.

Arab-American Almanac

The Fifth Edition (2003) and Sixth Edition (2010) of “The most comprehensive reference source on Arab-Americans” by long-time publisher of “The News Circle Magazine” are dedicated to “the Arab-American youth–that they may be good productive American citizens who take pride in their rich Arab heritage.”    Buy here.

How Does It Feel To Be A Problem?

“These are great stories about people who might be your neighbors, and Bayoumi delivers them with urgency, compassion, wryness and hints of poetry. You may walk away from the book with a much greater understanding of Arab-American life, but you’ll feel that’s simply because you’ve hung out with Bayoumi and friends, snarfing down Dunkin’ Donuts or puffing on hookahs, talking about vital issues.”
—Salon.com

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Season of Migration to the North
One of the classic themes followed in this complex novel, translated from the Arabic, is cultural dissonance between East and West, particularly the experience of a returned native. The narrator returns from his studies in England to his remote little village in Sudan, to begin his career as an educator. There he encounters Mustafa, a fascinating man of mystery, who also has studied at Oxford. As their relationship builds on this commonality, Mustafa reveals his past. A series of compulsive liaisons with English women who were similarly infatuated with the “Black Englishman,” as he was nicknamed, have ended in disaster. Charged with the passion killing of his last paramour, Mustafa was acquitted by the English courts. As he unravels his complicated, gory and erotic story, Mustafa charges the listener with the custody of his present life. When Mustafa disappears, apparently drowned in the Nile and perhaps a suicide, another door in his secretive life opens to include his wife and children. Emerging from a constantly evolving narrative, in a trance-like telling, is the clash between an assumed worldly sophistication and enduring, dark, elemental forces. An arresting work by a major Arab novelist who mines the rich lode of African experience with the Western world.

Simon Shaheen – Buy his music here
“Simon Shaheen dazzles his listeners as he deftly leaps from traditional Arabic sounds to jazz and Western classical styles. His soaring technique, melodic ingenuity, and unparalleled grace have earned him international acclaim as a virtuoso on the ‘oud and violin.

Shaheen is one of the most significant Arab musicians, performers, and composers of his generation. His work incorporates and reflects a legacy of Arabic music, while it forges ahead to new frontiers, embracing many different styles in the process. This unique contribution to the world of arts was recognized in 1994 when Shaheen was honored with the prestigious National Heritage Award at the White House.
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May Nasr – Buy music here
“Gratified, Elated, Exalted… Those are but few of the feelings you have when you hear her voice. That ‘noble’ voice which captures you, only to ‘free’ you from your own solicitudes. It summons you from beyond your deepest silence, carries you to the far reaches of your self, only to leave you there ‘waiting’. It mollifies your anxieties with its calmness, and uplifts your spirit with its liveliness. It exhorts one to make peace with one’s longings. May Nasr is a singer who serenely ‘sings our silences’.