Recommendations based on "The Complete Khaled Hosseini"

Ronya Othmann’s debut novel narrates the coming of age of Leyla, a Yazidi–Kurdish–German girl. She spends the school year in her mother’s home country of Germany but travels every summer to her father’s home village in Syria, near the Turkish border. She knows its smells and tastes. She knows its stories. She knows where the Yazidi villagers keep their suitcases hidden, should they need to escape again. And she watches from afar, horrified, as ISIS troops move on the village, threatening the lives of her grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends.Leyla’s sexual awakening proves far less traumatic than her growing disenchantment with her German classmates and friends, who appear completely indifferent to the fate of her Yazidi community. Thoughtful and poignant, The Summers addresses issues of gender, sexuality, cultural difference, politics, and identity. Othmann draws readers into multiple worlds, ultimately revealing the hopes and dreams that bind us all together when forces threaten to tear us apart.

The new novel from the Booker-shortlisted, internationally bestselling author of The Island of Missing Trees and 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World ***** There Are Rivers in the Sky is a rich, sweeping novel set between the 19th century and modern times, about love and loss, memory and erasure, hurt and healing, centred around three enchanting characters living on the banks of the River Thames and the River Tigris - their lives all curiously touched by the epic of Gilgamesh. ***** 'Elif Shafak is a unique and powerful voice in world literature' Ian McEwan 'Shafak makes a new home for us in words' Colum McCann 'One of the best writers in the world today' Hanif Kureishi

A masterful, intensely moving novel about three friends living in political exile and the emotional homeland that deep friendships can provide - from the Booker-shortlisted, Pulitzer prize-winning author of THE RETURNKhaled and Mustafa meet at university in two Libyan eighteen-year-olds expecting to return home after their studies. In a moment of recklessness and courage, they travel to London to join a demonstration in front of the Libyan embassy. When government officials open fire on protestors in broad daylight, both friends are wounded, and their lives forever changed.Over the years that follow, Khaled, Mustafa and their friend Hosam, a writer, are bound together by their shared history. If friendship is a space to inhabit, theirs becomes small and inhospitable when a revolution in Libya forces them to choose between the lives they have created in London and the lives they left behind.'I have always admired Matar's tender and compassionate but equally strong and compelling voice' Elif Shafak

*The international bestseller* "Every true love and friendship is a story of unexpected transformation. If we are the same person before and after we loved, that means we haven't loved enough..." Ella Rubinstein has a husband, three teenage children, and a pleasant home. Everything that should make her confident and fulfilled. Yet there is an emptiness at the heart of Ella's life - an emptiness once filled by love. So when Ella reads a manuscript about the thirteenth-century Sufi poet Rumi and Shams of Tabriz, and his forty rules of life and love, her world is turned upside down. She embarks on a journey to meet the mysterious author of this work. It is a quest infused with Sufi mysticism and verse, taking Ella and us into an exotic world where faith and love are heartbreakingly explored. . . 'Enlightening, enthralling. An affecting paean to faith and love' Metro 'Colourfully woven and beguilingly intelligent' Daily Telegraph 'The past and present fit together beautifully in a passionate defence of passion itself' The Times

Wise, often funny, sometimes heartbreaking, Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood tells the story of Marjane Satrapi's life in Tehran from the ages of six to fourteen, years that saw the overthrow of the Shah's regime, the triumph of the Islamic Revolution and the devastating effects of war with Iraq. The intelligent and outspoken child of radical Marxists, and the great-grandaughter of Iran's last emperor, Satrapi bears witness to a childhood uniquely entwined with the history of her country. Persepolis paints an unforgettable portrait of daily life in Iran and of the bewildering contradictions between home life and public life. Amidst the tragedy, Marjane's child's eye view adds immediacy and humour, and her story of a childhood at once outrageous and ordinary, beset by the unthinkable and yet buffered by an extraordinary and loving family, is immensely moving. It is also very beautiful; Satrapi's drawings have the power of the very best woodcuts.Persepolis ends on a cliffhanger in 1984, just as fourteen-year-old Marjane is leaving behind her home in Tehran, escaping fundamentalism and the war with Iraq to begin a new life in the West. In Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return we follow our young, intrepid heroine through the next eight years of her life: an eye-opening and sometimes lonely four years of high school in Vienna, followed by a supremely educational and heartwrenching four years back home in Iran. Just as funny and heartbreaking as its predecessor - with perhaps an even greater sense of the ridiculous inspired by life in a fundamentalist state - Persepolis 2 is also as clear-eyed and searing in its condemnation of fundamentalism and its cost to the human spirit. In its depiction of the universal trials of adolescent life and growing into adulthood - here compounded by being an outsider both abroad and at home, and by living in a state where you have no right to show your hair, wear make-up, run in public, date, or question authority - it's raw, honest, and incredibly illuminating.

A Dazzling And Intricate Tale From Elif Shafak, Booker-shortlisted Author Of 10 Minutes 38 Seconds In This Strange World 'there Were Six Of Us: The Master, The Apprentices And The White Elephant. We Built Everything Together...' Sixteenth Century Istanbul: A Stowaway Arrives In The City Bearing An Extraordinary Gift For The Sultan. The Boy Is Utterly Alone In A Foreign Land, With No Worldly Possessions To His Name Except Chota, A Rare White Elephant Destined For The Palace Menagerie. So Begins An Epic Adventure That Will See Young Jahan Rise From Lowly Origins To The Highest Ranks Of The Sultan's Court. Along The Way He Will Meet Deceitful Courtiers And False Friends, Gypsies, Animal Tamers, And The Beautiful, Mischievous Princess Mihrimah. He Will Journey On Chota's Back To The Furthest Corners Of The Sultan's Kingdom And Back Again. And One Day He Will Catch The Eye Of The Royal Architect, Sinan, A Chance Encounter Destined To Change Jahan's Fortunes Forever. Filled With All The Colour Of The Ottoman Empire, When Istanbul Was The Teeming Centre Of Civilisation, The Architect's Apprentice Is A Magical, Sweeping Tale Of One Boy And His Elephant Caught Up In A World Of Wonder And Danger. 'a Gorgeous Picture Of A City Teeming With Secrets, Intrigue And Romance' The Times 'shafak's Most Ambitious Novel Yet Her Best - Generous And Imaginative' Independent 'exuberant, Epic And Comic, Fantastical And Realistic . . . Like All Good Stories It Conveys Deeper Meanings About Human Experience' Financial Times 'fascinating. A Vigorous Evocation Of The Ottoman Empire At The Height Of Its Power' Sunday Times 'intricate, Multi-layered, Resplendent, Vividly Evoked, Beautifully Written' Observer 'sumptuous, Absorbing, Moving' Independent On Sunday

“Hilarious and Heartbreaking. Comedy shouldn’t take courage, but it made an exception for Bassem.” --Jon Stewart "The Jon Stewart of the Arabic World"—the creator of The Program, the most popular television show in Egypt’s history—chronicles his transformation from heart surgeon to political satirist, and offers crucial insight into the Arab Spring, the Egyptian Revolution, and the turmoil roiling the modern Middle East, all of which inspired the documentary about his life, Tickling Giants. Bassem Youssef’s incendiary satirical news program, Al-Bernameg (The Program), chronicled the events of the 2011 Egyptian Revolution, the fall of President Hosni Mubarak, and the rise of Mubarak’s successor, Mohamed Morsi. Youssef not only captured his nation’s dissent but stamped it with his own brand of humorous political criticism, in which the Egyptian government became the prime laughing stock. So potent were Youssef’s skits, jokes, and commentary, the authoritarian government accused him of insulting the Egyptian presidency and Islam. After a six-hour long police interrogation, Youssef was released. While his case was eventually dismissed, his television show was terminated, and Youssef, fearful for his safety, fled his homeland. In Revolution for Dummies, Youssef recounts his life and offers hysterical riffs on the hypocrisy, instability, and corruption that has long animated Egyptian politics. From the attempted cover-up of the violent clashes in Tahrir Square to the government’s announcement that it had created the world’s first "AIDS cure" machine, to the conviction of officials that Youssef was a CIA operative—recruited by Jon Stewart—to bring down the country through sarcasm. There’s much more—and it’s all insanely true. Interweaving the dramatic and inspiring stories of the development of his popular television show and his rise as the most contentious funny-man in Egypt, Youssef’s humorous, fast-paced takes on dictatorship, revolution, and the unforeseeable destiny of democracy in the Modern Middle East offers much needed hope and more than a few healing laughs. A documentary about his life, Tickling Giants, debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2016, and is now scheduled for major release.

Nobel Prize-winner Naguib Mahfouz’s magnificent epic trilogy of colonial Egypt—Palace Walk, Palace of Desire, and Sugar Street—together for the first time in one beautiful hardcover volume.The masterwork of the Nobel Prize-winning author, the three novels of The Cairo Trilogy trace three generations of the family of tyrannical patriarch Al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad, who rules his household with a strict hand while living a secret life of self-indulgence. Palace Walk introduces us to his gentle, oppressed wife, Amina, his cloistered daughters, Aisha and Khadija, and his three sons–the tragic and idealistic Fahmy, the dissolute hedonist Yasin, and the soul-searching intellectual Kamal. Al-Sayyid Ahmad’s rebellious children struggle to move beyond his domination in Palace of Desire, as the world around them opens to the currents of modernity and political and domestic turmoil brought by the 1920s. Sugar Street brings Mahfouz’s vivid tapestry of an evolving Egypt to a dramatic climax as the aging patriarch sees one grandson become a Communist, one a Muslim fundamentalist, and one the lover of a powerful politician.Throughout the trilogy, the family’s trials mirror those of their turbulent country during the years spanning the two World Wars, as change comes to a society that has resisted it for centuries. Filled with compelling drama, earthy humor, and remarkable insight, “The Cairo Trilogy extends our knowledge of life; it also confirms it” (The Boston Globe).Everyman's Library pursues the highest production standards, printing on acid-free cream-colored paper, with full-cloth cases with two-color foil stamping, decorative endpapers, silk ribbon markers, European-style half-round spines, and a full-color illustrated jacket. Contemporary Classics include an introduction, a select bibliography, and a chronology of the author's life and times.

A gripping memoir of bravery and sacrifice by a young woman whose escape from her abusive family and an oppressive culture in Saudi Arabia captivated the worldIn early 2019, after three years of careful planning, Rahaf Mohammed finally escaped her abusive family in Saudi Arabia—but made it only to Bangkok before being stripped of her passport. If forced to return home, she was sure she would be killed, like other rebel women in her country. As men pounded at the door of her barricaded hotel room, she opened a Twitter account. The teenager reached out to the world, and the world answered—she gained 45, 000 followers in one day, and those followers helped her seek asylum in the West.Now Rahaf Mohammed tells her remarkable story in her own words, revealing untold truths about life in the closed kingdom, where young women are brought up in a repressive system that puts them under the legal control of a male guardian. Raised with immense financial privilege but under the control of her male relatives—including her high-profile politician father—she endured an abusive childhood in which oppression and deceit were the norm.Moving from Rahaf's early days on the underground online network of Saudi runaways, who use coded entries to learn how to flee the brutalities of their homeland, to her solo escape to Canada, Rebel is a breathtaking and life-affirming memoir about one woman's tenacious pursuit of freedom.

Recommended by Malala Yousafzai, The Breadwinner is the first book in Deborah Ellis's bestselling series set in Afghanistan. This award-winning novel explores loyalty, survival, family and friendship under extraordinary circumstances. Parvana's father is arrested and taken away by Taliban soldiers. Under Taliban law, women and girls are not allowed to leave the house on their own. Parvana, her mother, and sisters are prisoners in their own home. With no man to go out to buy food, they face starvation. Forbidden to earn money as a girl, Parvana must transform herself into a boy, and become the breadwinner to save her family. It is a dangerous plan, but their only chance. In fear, she goes out, and witnesses the horror of landmines, the brutality of the Taliban, and the desperation of a country trying to survive. But even in despair lies hope . . .