Ahd Kamel’s Sanctity was a real surprise at the Gulf Film Festival. Saudi cinema has taken off in recent years despite a multitude of obtacles – an informal ban on public cinema houses and state funding of cinema, and frequent interference from […]
Here is a chapter list and short bits of random text: Introduction “Given the brutal police states that some of the nation-state regimes in the Arab region became, Saudi Arabia could have been viewed as an indigenous model that survived colonialism: the […]
Back to Abdelrahman Munif’s Cities of Salt and London-based Palestinian writer Elias Nasrallah’s recent book with a startling rereading of what Munif was trying to say in a work that has come to be regarded as one of the greats of modern […]
Prestigious Arabic Booker plagued by criticisms http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/12/15/emirates-arabic-prize-idUSLDE6BB06220101215 Tweet
I read quite a few of Abdo Khal’s novels. He’s idolised by the small liberal elite. This one got him the ‘Arabic Booker’. I met him at Dubai film festival in December 2010, we were chatting with Ahmed Mansoor who was arrested […]