Middle+East

=Middle East=

Human Rights

 * Non-fiction**

**Fiction**
Mahfuz, Najib. //Midaq Alley.// Hamida, an orphan raised by a foster mother, is drawn into prostitution. Kirsha, the owner of a cafe in the alley, is a drug addict and a lustful homosexual. Zaita makes a living by disfiguring people so that they can become successful beggars. A strange group of characters try to escape the poor life they lead in a seedy back alley in Cairo.

Nye, Naomi Shihab. //Habibi.// When 14-year-old Liyanne, her younger brother, and her parents move from St. Louis to a new home between Jerusalem and the Palestinian village where her father was born, they face many changes and must deal with the tensions between Jews and Palestinians.

Non-fiction
Zenatti, Valérie. //When I was a Soldier : A Memoir.// Presents the memoirs of Valerie Zenatti, who at eighteen, enlisted in the Israeli army, endured harsh conditions and surroundings, and participated in top secret missions for the Israeli Secret Service, and describes her French-Jewish heritage and personal struggles.

Non-fiction
Miller, Donald. //Survivors: An Oral History of the Armenian Genocide.// Survivors of Armenian genocide describe the breakup of villages, forced marches, refugee camps, and death of family members.

Fiction
Bagdasarian, Adam. //Forgotten Fire.// A boy survives Turkey's campaign of genocide against Armenians.

Skrypuch, Marsha Forchuk. 'Armenian genocide trilogy, 1915-1923' - //The Hunger, Nobody's Child, Daughter of War.// Historical fiction set during the Armenian Genocide.

Fiction
Mahfouz, Naguib. //The Thief and the Dogs.// After 4 years in prison, the skilled young thief Said Mahran emerges bent on revenge. He finds a world that has changed in more ways than one. Egypt has undergone a revolution and, on a more personal level, his beloved wife and his trusted henchman, who conspired to betray him to the police, are now married to each other and are keeping his 6-year-old daughter from him.

al-Shaykh, Hanan. //Beirut Blues : A Novel.// Asmahan's letters, written from war-torn Beirut, tell the stories of one woman's life and loves, her sense of being held hostage in her own country, and her attempts to make sense of life in the chaos of civil war.

al-Shaykh, Hanan. //The Story of Zahra.// This is the haunting story of a young Lebanese woman who attempts to stem the violence in Beirut by initiating a sexual liaison with a sniper. The story has "lifted the corner of a dark curtain" from a world that fascinates us all.

Staples, Suzanne Fisher. //Under the Persimmon Tree.// During the 2001 Afghan War, the lives of Najmal, a young refugee from Kunduz, Afghanistan, and Nusrat, an American-Muslim teacher who is awaiting her husband's return from Mazar-i-Sharif, intersect at a school in Peshawar, Pakistan.

Uris, Leon. //Exodus.// People from different backgrounds come to Palestine to help create the Jewish state of Israel after World War II.

Zenatti, Valérie. //A Bottle in the Gaza Sea//. Seventeen-year-old Tal Levine of Jerusalem, despondent over the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict, puts her hopes for peace in a bottle and asks her brother, a military nurse in the Gaza Strip, to toss it into the sea, leading ultimately to friendship and understanding between her and an "enemy."

Non-fiction
Ellis, Deborah. //Children of War : Voices of Iraqi Refugees//. This book is a collection of heartrending entries based on interviews with displaced kids between the ages 8 and 19. These children have suffered through more death, destruction, and violence than most people endure in a lifetime.

Saleem, Hiner. //My father's Rifle : A Childhood in Kurdistan.// Saleem Hiner shares the story of his coming of age in the 1960s and 70s in a Kurdish village in Iraq, discussing his childhood home, his family's incarceration in a refugee camp in Iran, their lives under the rule of Saddam Hussein, his stint as a Kurdish rebel, and his decision to flee to freedom.

Fiction
Ellis, Deborah. //No Safe Place.// 15-year-old Abdul, having lost everyone he loves, journeys from Baghdad to a migrant community in Calais where he sneaks aboard a boat bound for England, not knowing it carries a cargo of heroin, and when the vessel is involved in a skirmish and the pilot killed, it is up to Abdul and 3 other young stowaways to complete the journey.

Laird, Elizabeth. //Kiss the Dust.// Her father's involvement with the Kurdish resistance movement in Iraq forces thirteen-year-old Tara to flee with her family over the border into Iran, where they face an unknown future.

Non-fiction
Crofts, Andrew. //The Little Hero : One Boy's Fight for Freedom : Iqbal Masih's Story.// Presents the life of Iqbal Masih, a Pakistani child who was sold to the carpet industry as a slave, worked for most of his childhood, then escaped and used his voice to tell the story of others in the same situation and found the Bonded Labor Liberation Front before being murdered at age thirteen.

Fiction
Hosseini, Khaled. //The Kite Runner.// Amir, haunted by his betrayal of Hassan, the son of his father's servant and a childhood friend, returns to Kabul as an adult after he learns Hassan has been killed, in an attempt to redeem himself by rescuing Hassan's son from a life of slavery to a Taliban official.

Women's Rights
Al-Windawi, Thura. //Thura's Diary : My Life in Wartime Iraq.// Presents the diary entries of 19-year-old Thura Al-Windawi, the oldest daughter in a middle-class Shia Muslim family living in Baghdad, in which she shares her thoughts, emotions, and experiences throughout the war in Iraq, from March 15 through June 2003.

IraqiGirl. //IraqiGirl : Diary of a Teenage Girl in Iraq.// Fifteen-year-old Hadiya reflects on family, friendship, and community while she blogs from her home in the city of Mosul, Iraq; and details it is like to live in a military occupied country between 2004 and 2009. Includes a time line.

Riverbend. //Baghdad Burning : Girl Blog from Iraq.// Collects the August 2003-September 2004 Web log--or "blog"--entries of a young Iraqi woman, who presents an eyewitness civilian account of the U.S.-Iraq War's impact on her country, discussing her family life, the war's effect on women's lives, and such events as the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal.

Riverbend. //Baghdad Burning II : More Girl Blog from Iraq.// Collects the Oct 2004-Mar 2006 Web log--or "blog"--entries of a young Iraqi woman, who presents an eyewitness civilian account of the U.S.-Iraq War's impact on her country, discussing her family life, the war's effect on women's lives, and such events as the kidnapping of reporter Jill Carroll.

Latifa. //My Forbidden Face : Growing up under the Taliban : A Young Woman's Story.// Latifa, a young woman who was 16 in 1996 when the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan, tells about her family's experiences under the repressive regime, focusing on the lives of women and girls who were abruptly denied the freedom to work, go to school, or even leave their homes without a male escort.

Nafisi, Azar. //Reading Lolita in Tehran : A Memoir in Books.// Azar Nafisi chronicles her life in post-revolutionary Iran, focusing on her organization of a group of young women in 1997 who met secretly once a week to read and discuss forbidden works of Western literature. Includes discussion questions and a reading list.

Zoya. //Zoya's Story : An Afghan Woman's Struggle for Freed// //om.// A young Afghan woman who grew up during the wars of the 1980s and 1990s and the rise of the Taliban describes the terror she has witnessed in her homeland and the work she has done to change other women's fates through the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA).

Fiction
Antieau, Kim. //Broken Moon.// Her face scarred and honor soiled after a brutal levying of village justice, Pakistani teen Nadira has little left to lose--so when slave smugglers take her brother, she conceals her gender and goes after him. Her destination is an illegal camp for camel boys trained as jockeys in the dangerous sport of camel racing.

El Saadawi, Nawal. //Woman at Point Zero.// " All the men I did get to know, every single man of them, has filled me with but one desire: to lift my hand and bring it smashing down on his face. But because I am a woman I have never had the courage to lift my hand. And because I am a prostitute, I hid my fear under layers of make-up."

Hosseini, Khaled. //A Thousand Splendid Suns.// A novel set against the 3 decades of Afghanistan's history shaped by Soviet occupation, civil war, and the Taliban, which tells the stories of 2 women, Mariam and Laila, who grow close despite their nineteen-year age difference and initial rivalry as they suffer at the hand of a common enemy: their abusive husband.

Qamar, Amjed. //Beneath My Mother's Feet.// When her father is injured, 14-year-old Nazia is pulled away from school, her friends, and her preparations for an arranged marriage, to help her mother clean houses in a wealthy part of Karachi, Pakistan, where she finally rebels against the destiny that is planned for her.

Shaykh, Hanan. //Women of Sand and Myrrh.// Story of 4 women, living in an unnamed desert state, full of luxurious houses hidden behind high walls and women hidden behind veils. These women cannot drive or travel abroad without their husbands' permission, but they find small outlets that permit them to survive psychologically. They are given every luxury but freedom.

Sheth, Kashmira. //The Keeping Corner.// In India during World War I, 13-year-old Leela's happy, spoiled childhood ends when her husband since age 9 whom she barely knows, dies, leaving her a widow whose only hope of happiness could come from Mahatma Ghandi's social and political reforms.

Staples, Suzanne Fisher. //The House of Djinn.// An unexpected death brings Shabanu's daughter, Mumtaz, and nephew, Jameel, both 15, to the forefront of a push to modernize Pakistan, but they must sacrifice their own dreams to meet family and tribal expectations.

Staples, Suzanne Fisher. //Haveli.// Having relented to the ways of her people in Pakistan and married the rich older man to whom she was pledged against her will, Shabanu is now the victim of his family's blood feud and the malice of his other wives.

Non-fiction
Al-Windawi, Thura. //Thura's Diary : My Life in Wartime Iraq. // Diary entries of 19-year-old Thura Al-Windawi, the oldest daughter in a middle-class Shia Muslim family living in Baghdad, in which she shares her thoughts, emotions, and experiences throughout the war in Iraq, from March 15 through June 2003.

IraqiGirl. //IraqiGirl : Diary of a Teenage Girl in Iraq. // // 15 //-year-old Hadiya reflects on family, friendship, and community while she blogs from her home in the city of Mosul, Iraq ; and details it is like to live in a military occupied country between 2004 and 2009.

Fiction
Clinton, Cathryn. //A Stone in my Hand.// Set in Gaza City in 1988, this story of a Palestinian girl and her family living under Israeli military occupation. Malaak, 11, tells it with powerful immediacy in spare first-person present-tense chapters that capture her terror and dislocation. She is traumatized when her father is killed (a Palestinian terrorist bomb blows up the bus when he is crossing the border to seek work in Israel). In Gaza, her friend Tariq saw his father shot by Israeli soldiers. The young girl’s narrative captures the experience of the occupation and the never-ending cycle of anger and retaliation. The Palestinians are diverse in class, religion, and politics. Malaak finds courage and risks her life, but there’s no sweet solution.

Mahfouz, Naguib. //The Thief and the Dogs.// When Said Mahran is released from prison, he finds that he has been betrayed emotionally, physically, and intellectually. In his confusion, he strikes back with reckless abandon and destroys himself.

Non-fiction
Hakakian, Roya. //Journey from the Land of No : A Girlhood Caught in Revolutionary Iran.// Story is about Roya's childhood in revolutionary Iran. As a daughter of Jewish parents who had sympathies for the (left) resistance against the Shah, she paints a picture of both pre-revolutionary Iran, as well as revolutionary Iran, as a country that doesn’t offer (enough) freedom to its citizens.

Fiction
//Pride of Baghdad.// Written by Brian K. Vaughan ; art by Niko Henrichon. In the spring of 2003, a pride of lions escaped from the Baghdad Zoo during an American bombing raid, roaming the streets in a desperate struggle for their lives. "Pride of Baghdad" raises questions about the true meaning of liberation--can it be given or is it earned only through self-determination and sacrifice? And in the end, is it truly better to die free than to live life in captivity?

Non-fiction
Seierstad, Åsne.//The Bookseller of Kabul.// Seierstand tells of her experiences while staying with a bookseller named Sultan Khan and his family in Afghanistan just after the fall of the Taliban, describing what it was like for families in the country to adjust to a new way of life and a new government.