Stories From the Center of the World

Stories From the Center of the World: New Middle East Fiction

Jordan Elgrably, Editor

Annotated Table of Contents

Introduction

I

Exiles, Émigrés, Refugees

Asha and Haaji — Hanif Kureishi

The author of the story collection Love in a Blue Time and the novels Intimacy and The Last Word weaves a dystopian tale of migrants, love and literature.

Hanif Kureishi is the author of The Buddha of Suburbia, Intimacy, Love in a Blue Time, and the screenplay My Beautiful Laundrette, among many other works. He lives in London.

The Salamander — Sarah AlKahly-Mills

In this magical tale set in Lebanon and on a mysterious Mediterranean island, people dream of escape while a biologist seeks an elusive salamander. Sarah AlKahly-Mills is a Lebanese American writer living in Rome, Italy who was born in Burbank, California.

The Suffering Mother of the Whole World — Amany Kamal Eldin

A wayward daughter leaves Boston to spend a summer back home in Cairo, where she observes the decline of her once prominent family.

Amany Kamal Eldin was born in Egypt and received her MA from Columbia University. She has lived in the United States, England, France, Austria, Kenya, Italy, Oman, Yemen, and for the last 20 years, in the United Arab Emirates.

Godshow.com — Ahmed Naji

In a translation from Rana Asfour, a Muslim family man and an exile from Egypt searches for the right mosque in which to pray in Las Vegas.

Ahmed Naji is the author of four novels in Arabic: Rogers (2007), Using Life (2014), And Tigers to my Room (2020) and Happy Endings (2023). Using Life landed him a sentence in one of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s prisons for offending public morality, an experience he writes about in his memoir Rotten Evidence: Reading and Writing in Prison (McSweeney’s, 2023). His work has been translated into a number of languages and he has won several prizes including a Dubai Press Club Award, a PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Award, and an Open Eye Award. He lives in exile in Las Vegas.

Nadira of Tlemcen — Abdellah Taïa

Sometimes you have to escape everything you know in order to become yourself.

Abdellah Taïa writes in French and has published nine novels (many translated into English and other languages), including L’armée du salut (2006), Une mélancolie arabe (2008), Infidèles (2012), Un pays pour mourir (2015), Celui qui est digne d’être aimé (2017), La vie lente (2019) and Vivre à ta lumière (2022). His novel Le jour du Roi was awarded the French Prix de Flore in 2010. His novel, A Country for Dying, translated into English by Seven Stories Press, won the Pen America Literary Awards 2021.

My Rebellious Feet — Diary Marif

A Kurdish boy in a large family longs for a proper pair of shoes that he can show off to his cousins and schoolmates.

Diary Marif is a Canadian Kurdish nonfiction writer and freelance journalist. He moved to Vancouver from Iraq in 2017, where he has been focusing on nonfiction writing and has recently written two book chapters for two different projects. He earned a master's degree in History from Pune University in India in 2013.

The Afghan and the Persian — Jordan Elgrably

Forced to flee his homeland, the new life of a refugee is Europe is upended by an unforeseen conflict.

Jordan Elgrably is a Franco-American and Moroccan writer and translator whose stories and creative nonfiction have appeared in numerous anthologies and reviews, including Apulée, Salmagundi and The Paris Review. Editor-in-chief and founder of The Markaz Review, he is the cofounder and former director of the Levantine Cultural Center/The Markaz in Los Angeles (2001-2020), and producer of the stand-up comedy show “The Sultans of Satire” (2005-2017) and hundreds of other public programs. He is based in Montpellier, France, and California.

A Dog in the Woods — Malu Halasa

A loss heals broken families and identities fragmented by assimilation.

Malu Halasa is a Jordanian-Filipina American author of the novel Mother of All Pigs, and the non-fiction anthologies, Woman Life Freedom, Voices and Art from the Women’s Protests in Iran, Syria Speaks: Art and Culture from the Frontline, Transit Tehran: Young Iran and Its Inspirations, with Maziar Bahari, and The Secret Life of Syrian Lingerie: Intimacy and Design, with Rana Salam. Halasa is the Literary Editor of The Markaz Review and is based in London.

II

The Question of Love

Anarkali, or Six Early Deaths in Lahore — Farah Ahamed

In the ancient romantic tale, Anarkali was a courtesan dancer in the Mughal court of Salim Jahangir who was burnt alive for falling in love with him. Here, she is a poor street sweeper in Lahore, nicknamed Anarkali by a white professor researching bombings of the city’s churches.

Farah Ahamed’s writing has been published in The White Review, Ploughshares and The Massachusetts Review, amongst others. She is the editor of Period Matters: Menstruation Experiences in South Asia, Pan Macmillan India, 2022. She was born and raised in Kenya and now lives in London.

Buenos Aires of Her Eyes — Alireza Iranmehr

In this translation by Salar Abdoh, one of Iran’s best-known contemporary storytellers conjures a tale of octogenarian love in a Nabokovian mode.

Alireza Iranmehr was born in Mashhad, Iran. He has written extensively as a critic and scriptwriter, and his novels and short story collections have won several of Iran’s major literary awards. His works include The Pink Cloud (Candle and Fog, 2013), and All the Men of Tehran Are Named Alireza, and Summer Snow, both collections published in Persian. He lives and works in the Gilan province near the Caspian Sea.

The Location of the Soul According to Benyamin Alhadeff — Nektar Anastasiadou

A rich tale of thwarted love between Sephardic and Rum residents of Istanbul.

Nektaria Anastasiadou is the author of the novels A Recipe for Daphne (Hoopoe/AUC Press, 2021) and Beneath the Feet of Eternal Spring (Papadopoulos, 2023). She is a Turkish citizen writing in Istanbul Greek and English.

Rana Asfour (translator), a native of Amman, Jordan, is a writer, book critic and translator whose work has appeared in such publications as Madame Magazine, The Guardian UK and The National/UAE. She is the Managing Editor of The Markaz Review.

The Cactus — Mohammed Al-Naas

In a translation by Rana Asfour, can a man who loves a woman prove his mettle by taking proper care of a cactus that stings him with its spines?

Mohammed Al-Naas is a Libyan writer who is interested in alternative Libyan stories. His novel Bread on Uncle Milad’s Table (HarperVIA, 2024) won the 2022 International Prize for Arabic Fiction. He divides his time between Libya and Turkey.

Counter Strike — MK Harb

In this queer coming-of-age story, the narrator remembers a tenuous sense of home as he searched for himself in adolescence in Lebanon.

MK Harb is a writer from Beirut who serves as Editor-at-Large for Lebanon at Asymptote Journal. His writings have been published in The White Review, The Bombay Review, BOMB, The Times Literary Supplement, Hyperallergic, Art Review Asia, Asymptote, Scroope Journal and Jadaliyya. He is currently working on a collection of short stories pertaining to the Arabian Peninsula. He lives in Dubai.

Raise Your Head High — Leila Aboulela

Can Egypt’s Arab Spring heal a rift between a sister who has been abused and a sister who doesn’t believe her?

Sudanese-born Leila Aboulela is the author of two short story collections and six novels, including The New York Times Editor’s Choice River Spirit. She’s based in Aberdeen, Scotland.

Here, Freedom — Danial Haghighi

In this translation from Salar Abdoh, a small town couple in Iran have a brutally honest conversation about marriage in light of the “Woman, Life, Freedom” protests.

Danial Haghighi is a Tehran-based author of seven books and numerous essays in Persian. His work has appeared in the short story collection Tehran Noir (Akashic Books, 2014).

The Agency — Natasha Tynes

A thirty-something Jordanian woman with an American MBA hits her stride, running Amman’s first international dating agency, but still hasn’t found her one true love.

Nastasha Tynes is a Jordanian-American author in Rockville, Maryland, and a regular contributor to The Washington Post, Nature Magazine, Elle and Esquire, among others. Her short stories have appeared in Geometry, The Timberline Review, and Fjords. Her short story “Ustaz Ali” was a prizewinner at the prestigious annual F. Scott Fitzgerald Literary Festival. She is also the author of the speculative literary novel They Called Me Wyatt.

III

The Roots of Heaven

The Long Walk of the Martyrs — Salar Abdoh

A story of Iranian and Afghan soldiers who survived the war against ISIS living in Tehran.

Salar Abdoh is the author of the novels Poet Game, Opium, Tehran At Twilight, Out of Mesopotamia, and A Nearby Country Called Love, and is the editor and translator of the anthology Tehran Noir. He’s based in New York.

The Burden of Inheritance — Mai Al-Nakib

A woman makes a Herculean effort to preserve the memory and artwork of her late husband.

Mai Al-Nakib is author of the novel An Unlasting Home (Mariner Books-HarperCollins, 2022) and the award-winning short story collection The Hidden Light of Objects (Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing, 2014). She was born in Kuwait and spent the first six years of her life in London, Edinburgh and St. Louis, Missouri. She divides her time between Kuwait and Greece.

Eleazar — Karim Kattan

A Palestinian family mysteriously disintegrates while violence permeates the valley in which they reside.

Karim Kattan is a Palestinian writer from Bethlehem who writes in French and English. He is the author, most recently, of the novel Le Palais des deux collines (‎Elyzad, 2021). Kattan, awarded the Prix des Cinq Continents de la Francophonie in 2021, has also been shortlisted for many other awards. His second novel, L'Éden à l'aube, is forthcoming in 2024.

Ride On, Shooting Star — May Haddad

In this sci-fi story, Carna’ is a spacefaring mail carrier fed up with working for the Universal Courier Service who journeys to the edge of the universe.

NOTE: Carna’ is an Arabic name — the apostrophe is meant to simulate a letter written in Arabic.

May Haddad is an Arab American writer of speculative fiction whose work deals with the Levantine Arab experience across time and space and touches on themes of nostalgia, isolation, memory, and longing. With roots tracing all over Lebanon, Syria, and Palestine, they currently alternate their time between the U.S. and Lebanon. You can find their work in the SFWA Blog, The Markaz Review, and Nightmare Magazine.

Turkish Delights — Omar Foda

Omar Foda draws on family lore and fieldwork to weave together a satirical tale of ego and power in 1920s Egypt.

Omar Foda is a graduate of the PhD program in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of Pennsylvania. He has published articles and a book on the history of Egypt including Egypt’s Beer: Stella, Identity and the Modern State (University of Texas, 2019) and has taught at Towson University, Bryn Mawr College, and the University of Pennsylvania. He was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and lives in Syracuse, NY.

The Settlement — Tariq Mehmood

An allegorical story with the strange beauty and simplicity of a tale by Ghassan Kanafani or J.M. Coetzee.

Tariq Mehmood is a novelist and filmmaker. His first novel Hand On The Sun (Penguin, 1983) on racism and resistance in the UK was republished by Daraja Press in 2023. His next novel, Sing To The Western Wind, The Song It Understands, is due out in Spring 2024 from Verso. He works at the American University of Beirut in Lebanon.

The Peacock — Sahar Mustafah

A Palestinian woman battles both the patriarchy and the occupation to free herself from the toxic jurisdiction men have claimed over her.

Sahar Mustafah’s first novel The Beauty of Your Face was named a Notable Book and Editor’s Choice by The New York Times Book Review, and included in Marie Claire Magazine’s Best Fiction by Women. It was long-listed for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and was a finalist for the Palestine Book Awards. She was awarded a 2023 Jack Hazard Fellowship from the New Literary Project and a literature grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency. Mustafah is a native Chicagoan and currently resides in Orland Park, IL.

The Icarist — Omar El Akkad

A beguiling coming-of-age story set in Doha, where the writer grew up before his family emigrated to Canada.

Omar El Akkad is the author of the novels American War (Knopf, 2017) and What Strange Paradise (Knopf, 2021). Born in Egypt, he spent his youth in the Gulf, then moved to Canada, and now lives in Oregon.

The Devil’s Waiting List — Ahmed Salah Al-Mahdi

A solitary bachelor, seeking success as a writer, wonders what he has to do in contemporary Cairo to get ahead.

Ahmed Salah Al-Mahdi is an Egyptian author, translator and literary critic in Cairo who specializes in fantasy, science fiction and children’s literature. He has five novels published in Arabic so far. Two of them — Reem: Into the Unknown and Malaz: City of Resurrection — have been translated into English. He has published many short stories, poems, and articles published in various languages.

About the Writers and Translators

Glossary

Acknowledgements