A journalist who has been stationed in the Middle East for seven years recounts the customs, religion, and food of the Arab culture and recalls the odd assortment of characters he encountered

Sandstorms: Days and Nights in Arabia

History

Theroux, Peter

Middle East

W.W. Norton & Co., Inc.

A tour of, and thorough immersion in, the diverse cultures of Los Angeles locates the thriving human centers of a notoriously centerless metropolis and introduces us to the rich life of its inhabitants. 10,000 first printing. Tour.

Translating LA: A Tour of the Rainbow City

Americas

"[A] stunningly candid portrait of culture and politics in the Middle East." -Los Angeles Times Book Review In this provocative and incisive memoir, Peter Theroux reveals the Middle East only as a true insider can. Stationed as a journalist in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, for most of his seven years in the region, Theroux explodes the romantic images of Arabia, but replaces them with the even more intriguing reality of fanatic Muslims, overwhelmingly rich and powerful royal families, and the vast gulf in understanding between Arabs and westerners. .

W.W.Norton&Company

“Peter Theroux, as a brilliant translator and writer, has taught western readers about the Arabic world. Now, with Translating LA, Theroux crosses new borders―in southern California. With great wit and energy, he shows us the Los Angeles we have not understood well enough. He deconstructs and reconstructs the city famous for its separate freeway exits until finally and for the first time (like newcomers from a foreign land) we see Los Angeles whole.” ―Richard Rodriguez At a time when it is America’s leading candidate for the star role of Armageddon, Los Angeles still reigns as the destination par excellence and de facto trendsetter for the United States. Despite its curse of ancient and modern-day plagues―what other city can claim the rights to earthquakes and smog as well as riots and gang warfare?―Los Angeles remains the mythical source for the blood flowing through the American heart: the "pot of gold" that lies on the other coast of the rainbow. In Translating LA, Peter Theroux leads us beyond the rainbow in an affectionate and anecdotal guide to the human centers of Los Angeles. By bringing LA's thousand-and-one ethnic enclaves together with its broad range of social classes, Theroux understands LA by stretching across its fault lines with results that are "surprising and illuminating" (LA Reader). With its genuine sensitivity towards past, present, and future, Translating LA searches the souls of Angelenos to deliver a remarkable commentary on America's most complex and diverse city.

Politics & Social Sciences

Sociology

In this, the first Nubian novel ever translated Idris Ali paints in vibrant detail the story of cultures and hearts divided, of lost lands, impossible dreams, and abandoned loves.

Dongola: A Novel of Nubia

Literature & Fiction

Ali, Idris

Contemporary

University of Arkansas Press

The University of Arkansas Press Award for Arabic Literature in Translation, 1997
In this, the first Nubian novel ever translated, Awad Shalali, a Nubian worker in modern Egypt, dreams of Dongola—the capital of medeval Nubia, now lost to the flood waters of the Aswan High Dam. In Dongola, the Nubians reached their zenith. They defeated and dominated Upper Egypt, and their archers, deadly accurate in battle, were renowned as “the bowman of the glance.
Helima, Awad’s wife, must deal with the reality of today’s Nubia, a poverty-stricken bottomland. Men like Awad now work in Cairo for good wages while the women remain at home in squalor, dominated by the Islam of their conquerors and ignorant of the glory now covered by the Nile’s water. Left to tend Awad’s sick mother and his dying country, Halima grows despondent and learns the truths behind the Upper Egyptian lyric: “Time, you are a traitor—what have you done with my love?
Through his characters’ pain and suffering, Idris Ali paints in vibrant detail, with wit and a keen sense of history’s absurdities, the story of cultures and hearts divided, of lost lands, impossible dreams, and abandoned lives.

Seen through the eyes of a nine-year old girl, Huda, this novel captures the atmosphere of Baghdad in the 1940s. A city of public steam baths, of roadside butchers, of spinning tops and childhood games played in the streets, streets where political demonstrations are beginning to take place. With real perception the complex web of family relationships is illustrated by the tension between the fiery and feisty nature of Huda and her powerlessness as a child. Huda's father, a prison guard and a bully, hides his weakness beneath apparent strength. He drives his desperately ill wife from the family home, replacing her with his pregnant second wife. But Huda has two allies; her devoted and beloved brother Adil and her grandmother, who is the real power in the family.

Mothballs (Arab Women Writers)

Mamdouh, Alia

Mamduh, Aliyah

Garnet Pub Ltd

In Obscura Part I: Adventures in the World of Intelligence

Biographies & Memoirs

Leaders & Notable People

Station Square Media

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Theroux, Peter. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Theroux, Peter

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Theroux, Peter. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Sandstorms: Days and Nights in Arabia

Translating LA: A Tour of the Rainbow City

Sandstorms: Days and Nights in Arabia

Translating LA: A Tour of the Rainbow City

Dongola: A Novel of Nubia

Dongola: A Novel of Nubia

Mothballs (Arab Women Writers)

In Obscura Part I: Adventures in the World of Intelligence