Book picks similar to
A Time Between Ashes & Roses by أدونيس


poetry
contemporary
middle-east
recommended-by-friends

Dear Future Historians: Lyrics and Exegesis of Rou Reynolds for the Music of Enter Shikari


Enter Shikari - 2017
    They have become one of the most influential British rock bands of their generation, sharing with their fans a belief that music can inspire change. Dear Future Historians features front-man Rou Reynolds own song interpretations and social commentary alongside all of their lyrics to date.

Disoriental


Négar Djavadi - 2016
    Now twenty-five, with a new life and the prospect of a child, Kimiâ is inundated by her own memories and the stories of her ancestors, which reach her in unstoppable, uncontainable waves. In the waiting room of a Parisian fertility clinic, generations of flamboyant Sadrs return to her, including her formidable great-grandfather Montazemolmolk, with his harem of fifty-two wives, and her parents, Darius and Sara, stalwart opponents of each regime that befalls them.In this high-spirited, kaleidoscopic story, key moments of Iranian history, politics, and culture punctuate stories of family drama and triumph. Yet it is Kimiâ herself—punk-rock aficionado, storyteller extraordinaire, a Scheherazade of our time, and above all a modern woman divided between family traditions and her own “disorientalization”—who forms the heart of this bestselling and beloved novel.

Introducing George The Poet: Search Party: A Collection of Poems


George The Poet Limited - 2015
    From the overtly political ‘Go Home’ to the deeply personal ‘Full-time’; the narrative poems that offer vivid and unapologetic snapshots of inner-city life, such as ‘His Mistakes’, ‘Believer’ and the anthemic ‘My City’; to the provocative social commentary in ‘Lazy Dog’ and ‘YOLO’; to the inspiring, idea-driven pieces such as ‘The Power of Collaboration’ and ‘School Blues’, George takes poetry into new territories and to new audiences, offering a different way to talk about the things that matter, to explore his own experience and ideas, and encourage others explore theirs.George The Poet’s mesmerising and unforgettable live performances have earned him critical acclaim. From sell-out headline gigs and YouTube hits, to recording his own music, and now his first collection of poetry, George uses his work to speak truth to power and challenge our preconceived ideas about the society we’re living in.Whether you’re searching for yourself, for answers, for change – join the search party.

Liar


Lynn Crosbie - 2006
    From illusions of permanence and ownership to the pain of estrangement, Liar masterfully explores feelings familiar to anyone who has ever loved — and lost. Crosbie also goes beyond this territory, examining the lover’s own complicity in her joy and suffering. Liar is a grotesque, beautiful meditation on the nature of love.

The Book of Gaza: A City in Short Fiction


Atef Abu Saif - 2014
    Together, these stories will enable English-speaking readers to go beyond the global media coverage and enter into the daily life of ordinary characters struggling to live with dignity in what is effectively the world’s largest prison. The authors range from highly acclaimed writers to exciting new voices in Arabic literature, including the “Father of the Palestinian” short story, Zaki Al Ela, and a new generation of young women bloggers and activists, such as Mona Abu Sharikhm, Dawlat Al Masri, and Najla Attalah.

What We Owe


Golnaz Hashemzadeh Bonde - 2017
    Or so the doctors say. But Nahid is not the type to trust anyone. She resents the cancer diagnosis she has been given and the doctor who has given it to her. Bubbling inside her is also resentment toward life as it turned out, and the fact that it will go on without her. She feels alone, alone with her illness and alone with her thoughts. She yearns yet fails to connect with her only daughter, Aram. As the rawness of death draws near, Nahid should want to protect Aram from pain. She knows she should. Yet what is a daughter but one born to share in her mother’s pain?At fifty, Nahid is no stranger to death. As a Marxist revolutionary in eighties Iran, she saw loved ones killed in the street and was forced to flee to Sweden. She and her husband abandoned their roots to build a new life in a new country. They told themselves they did it for their newborn daughter, so she could live free. But now as she stands on the precipice facing death, Nahid understands that what you thought you escaped will never let you go. And without roots, can you ever truly be free?

The Collected Poems of Weldon Kees (Revised Edition)


Weldon Kees - 1975
    During Weldon Kees’s life, his poems appeared in all the most prestigious magazines of the day—Poetry (Chicago), the New Yorker, Kenyon Review, Partisan Review, and the Nation.

So, You Want to Join the Peace Corps: What to Know Before You Go


Dillon Banerjee - 2000
    As you contemplate the reality of volunteering, your mind races with questions. Which programs are my skills best suited to? How will the culture shock affect me? What will my life overseas be like? Will my work really make a difference? Written by a returned Peace Corps volunteer, SO, YOU WANT TO JOIN THE PEACE CORPS...is a candid, straightforward guide that answers all these questions and many more. Author Dillon Banerjee shares his personal insights--and those of returned volunteers who served all over the world--to help prepare you for the experience of a lifetime. Whether you're thinking of joining, or have already been accepted and are getting ready to leave, this book provides answers you simply can't find elsewhere.

Boris by the Sea


Matvei Yankelevich - 2009
    The world was 'somewhere inside his skull. And it hurt.' These poems and dramatic sketches, however, delight even when they hurt" -- ROSMARIE WALDROP"BORIS BY THE SEA was born when Aesop was reading Chekhov, and Chekhov was reading Nietzsche, and Nietzsche was watching The Brother From Another Planet. Actually Matvei Yankelevich wrote this book, but 'wrote' is incomplete... he seems more to inhabit this stateless, beautiful being who uses language to move his body or erase the sea: 'Boris looked over himself and realized there were many parts of him that he could not see. And only a small part of these parts was on the surface.' BORIS BY THE SEA could be a children's fable if it weren't so freakin' real, unreal, hyper-real: 'But people need each other to open each other up and see what is inside.' This is Boris--and he, like Pinnochio--has a clever master." -- ROBERT FITTERMANMatvei Yankelevich's first full-length book, BORIS BY THE SEA, is a work of existential theater that destroys the distance between puppeteer and puppet, between ego and id, between what is real and what is absurd. Consisting of prose, poems, and plays, the book creates its own world and then confronts the loneliness of having to exist within one's own creation. Like Daniil Kharms, Yankelevich has written a children's book for only the bravest of adults.

Shirt in Heaven


Jean Valentine - 2015
    . . short poems so as to draw us into the doubleness and fluency of feelings."—The New York Times Book ReviewQuietly marked by elegy and memory, National Book Award winner Jean Valentine's thirteenth book is empowered by her signature clear music and compassion. Valentine leads us chronologically from childhood drawings and wartime memories to the present, where she addresses aging and the loss of loved ones. These poems of tender grace reflect on the small histories few ever fully see.Shirt in HeavenCome upon a snapshotof secret you, smiling like FDR, leaning on your crutches—come upon letters I thought I'd burned—I suppose you've got a place with lots of stairs.I'm at the end of something, you're at the beginning . . . —dearest, they told me a surgeon sat downin the hospital morgue, next to your body, & cried.He yelled at the aide to get out.His two sons had been your students.—me too, little-knowing—Jean Valentine is the current State Poet of New York and author of twelve books of poetry, including Door in the Mountain, which won the National Book Award. She has taught at Sarah Lawrence College, New York University, and Columbia University, and lives in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of New York City.

Widening Income Inequality: Poems


Frederick Seidel - 2016
    . . [Seidel’s] poems are a triumph of cosmic awe in the face of earthly terror.” —Hillel Italie, USA TodayFrederick Seidel has been called many things. A “transgressive adventurer,” “a demonic gentleman,” a “triumphant outsider,” “a great poet of innocence,” and “an example of the dangerous Male of the Species,” just to name a few. Whatever you choose to call him, one thing is certain: “he radiates heat” (The New Yorker).Now add to that: the poet of aging and decrepitude.Widening Income Inequality, Seidel’s new poetry collection, is a rhymed magnificence of sexual, historical, and cultural exuberance, a sweet and bitter fever of Robespierre and Obamacare and Apollinaire, of John F. Kennedy and jihadi terror and New York City and Italian motorcycles. Rarely has poetry been this true, this dapper, or this dire. Seidel is “the most poetic of the poets and their leader into hell.”

Gulf Music: Poems


Robert Pinsky - 2007
    Callings and contrivances. King Zulu. Comus.Sephardic ju-ju and verses. Voodoo mojo, Special Forces.Henry formed a group named Professor Longhair and hisShuffling Hungarians. After so much renunciationAnd invention, is this the image of the promised end?All music haunted by all the music of the dead forever.Becky haunted forever by Pearl the daughter she abandonedFor love, O try my tra-la-la, ma la belle, mah walla-woe.—from "Gulf Music"An improvised, even desperate music, yearning toward knowledge across a gulf, informs Robert Pinsky's first book of poetry since Jersey Rain (2000).On the large scale of war or the personal scale of family history, in the movements of people and cultures across oceans or between eras, these poems discover connections between things seemingly disparate.Gulf Music is perhaps the most ambitious, politically impassioned, and inventive book by this major American poet.

Death of a Red Heroine


Qiu Xiaolong - 2000
    As Inspector Chen Cao of the Shanghai Special Cases Bureau struggles to trace the hidden threads of her past, he finds himself challenging the very political forces that have guided his life since birth. Chen must tiptoe around his superiors if he wants to get to the bottom of this crime, and risk his career—perhaps even his life—to see justice done.

Shatila Stories


Omar Khaled AhmadHiba Mareb - 2018
    On every page, the glint of hope for dignity and a better life is heartbreakingly alive.’ Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite RunnerMost novels are written by professional writers using second hand material. Not this one. Peirene commissioned nine refugees to tell their ‘Shatila Stories’. The result is a piece of collaborative fiction unlike any other. If you want to understand the chaos of the Middle East – or you just want to follow the course of a beautiful love story – start here.Adam and his family flee Syria and arrive at the Shatila refugee camp in Beirut. Conditions in this overcrowded Palestinian camp are tough, and violence defines many of the relationships: a father fights to save his daughter, a gang leader plots to expand his influence, and drugs break up a family. Adam struggles to make sense of his refugee experience, but then he meets Shatha and starts to view the camp through her eyes.Why Peirene chose to commission this book:‘I want to hear their stories and see if their imaginations can open up a new path of understanding between us. Collaborative works of literature can achieve what no other literature can do. By pooling our imaginations we are able to access something totally different and new that goes beyond boundaries – that of the individual, of nations, of cultures. It connects us to our common human essence: our creativity. Let’s make stories, not more war.’ Meike Ziervogel

Born Under a Lucky Star: A Red Army Soldier's Recollections of the Eastern Front of World War II


Ivan Philippovich Makarov - 2020
    That was on his first day at the front.Thrown into an open field to face German tanks and artillery fire, with only rifles and machine guns to defend themselves with, almost 2,000 men of his regiment were wiped out in only six days at the Eastern Front. At this rate, Ivan struggled to comprehend how he would survive the hundreds of battles that lay before him, with death seeming to be the only certainty.In his raw and trenchant memoir, Ivan recounts the terror and despair faced by a Red Army soldier on the Eastern Front.He has no sympathy for Stalin and his incompetent commanders, who sought awards and recognition at the expense of their soldiers’ lives. He simply wanted to serve his country.It is rare to find first-hand accounts of the Great Patriotic War from Red Army soldiers, as many did not survive to tell the tale. For the first time, Ivan reveals his gripping recollections of battles, times, places, and people encountered throughout World War II, from when he was drafted in 1941 until their victory in 1945.These recollections he dared not put on paper until 1992.