"Leo Africanus is a beautiful book of tales about people who are forced to accept choices made for them by someone else...It relates, petically at times and often imaginatively, the story of those who did not make it to the New World."--New York Times Boo
'We are, and always will be, wanderers who have lost their way . . .' When a trunk of family letters gives Amin Maalouf the opportunity to trace his past, he finds himself - having never before asked questions - transfixed by the stories of his ancestor
This is the story of Mani, a forgotten figure, but whose name is yet, paradoxically, on everyone's lips.When using the words "Manichean" or "Manichaeism" one rarely thinks Mani, painter, doctor and Eastern philosopher of the third century, called "the Bud
Tanios was a child of the mountains of Lebanon in the 1880s when the Egyptian Pashas were struggling against Ottoman domination and the British and French plotted with and against each other. Amin Maalouf's novel, The Rock of Tanios, begins with a recolle
An ambitious novel set in 1665, the tumultuous eve of the Year of the Beast, when the world was supposed to come to an end. Antiquarian merchant and sage Balthasar must go on an odyssey in search of a book that holds the secret of God's hundredth name, wh
Accused of mocking the inviolate codes of Islam, the Persian poet and sage Omar Khayyam fortuitously finds sympathy with the very man who is to judge his alleged crimes. Recognising genuis, the judge decides to spare him and gives him instead a small, bla
The author has combed the works of contemporary Arab chronicles of the Crusades, eyewitnesses, and often participants. He retells their story and offers insights into the historical forces that shape Arab and Islamic consciousness today.
Beirut is the 2009 World Book Capital, as designated by UNESCO, and at the center of the festivities, in collaboration with the world-renowned Hay Festival, is a competition to identify the thirty-nine most promising young talents in Arab literature. The
