English-language BookGroup

June 2022 BookGroup selection are the short stories in TMR 22 

The Markaz Review runs an inter­na­tion­al book club that meets on Zoom every last Sun­day of the month. Read­ers from Los Ange­les to Abu Dhabi share thoughts and insights on the month’s selec­tion. Fre­quent­ly, the author (and some­times their trans­la­tor) joins the group dur­ing the sec­ond half of the hour. Our book­group always meets the last Sun­day at 1 pm Eastern.

For Sun­day, June 26th, we will be talk­ing about the short sto­ries includ­ed in TMR 22 • STORIES, by such writ­ers as Hanif Kureishi, Joumana Had­dad, Karim Kat­tan, Ahmed Naji, Mai Al-Nakib, Nek­taria Anas­tasi­adou, Sarah Kahly-Mills and others.

To get on the list to receive the Zoom link for June 26, email books@themarkaz.org.

TMR’s book­group is mod­er­at­ed by Jor­dan­ian book­worm (and editor/translator) Rana Asfour.

July 2022 BookGroup selection is The Best Place on Earth, by Ayelet Tsabari

Con­fi­dent, orig­i­nal and humane, the sto­ries in The Best Place on Earth are peo­pled with char­ac­ters at the cross­roads of nation­al­i­ties, reli­gions and com­mu­ni­ties: expa­tri­ates, trav­ellers, immi­grants and locals.

In the pow­er­ful­ly affect­ing open­ing sto­ry, “Tikkun,” a chance meet­ing between a man and his for­mer lover car­ries them through near tragedy and into unex­pect­ed peace. In “Casu­al­ties,” Tsabari takes us into the military—a world every Israeli knows all too well—with a brusque, sexy young female sol­dier who forges med­ical leave forms to make ends meet. Poets, sol­diers, sib­lings and dis­senters, the pro­tag­o­nists here are most­ly Israelis of Mizrahi back­ground (Jews of Mid­dle East­ern and North African descent), whose sto­ries have rarely been told in lit­er­a­ture. In illus­trat­ing the lives of those whose iden­ti­ties swing from fierce­ly patri­ot­ic to pow­er­ful­ly glob­al, The Best Place on Earth explores Israeli his­to­ry as it illu­mi­nates the ten­u­ous connections—forged, frayed and occa­sion­al­ly destroyed—between cul­tures, between gen­er­a­tions and across the gulf of trans­for­ma­tion and loss. [Goodreads]

To get on the list to receive the Zoom link for June 26, email books@themarkaz.org. 

The May 2022 Bookgroup selection was The Go-Between, a memoir by Osman Yousefzada

“A beau­ti­ful­ly observed and fun­ny book” Guardian “Com­pelling and humane” Sath­nam Sanghera

A com­ing-of-age sto­ry set in Birm­ing­ham in the 1980s and 1990s, The Go-Between opens a win­dow into a closed migrant com­mu­ni­ty liv­ing in a red-light dis­trict on the wrong side of the tracks.

The adult world is seen through Osman’s eyes as a child: his own devout Pash­tun patri­ar­chal com­mu­ni­ty, with its divide between the world of men and women, liv­ing cheek-by-jowl with par­al­lel migrant com­mu­ni­ties. The ortho­dox attend a mosque down the road from the pros­ti­tutes and pimps. Chil­dren bal­ance West­ern school teach­ings with cul­tur­al traditions.

The April 2022 Bookgroup selection was The Monotonous Chaos of Existence, stories by Hisham Bustani

The sto­ries with­in Hisham Bustani’s The Monot­o­nous Chaos of Exis­tence explore the tur­bu­lent trans­for­ma­tion in con­tem­po­rary Arab soci­eties. With a deft and poet­ic touch, Bus­tani exam­ines the inter­per­son­al with a glob­al lens, con­nects the seem­ing­ly con­tra­dic­to­ry, and delves into the ways that inter­na­tion­al con­flict can tear open the indi­vid­u­als that pop­u­late his world—all while push­ing the nar­ra­tive form into new and unex­pect­ed terrain.

“These sto­ries recall the rhythms of poet­ry, offer up the inti­ma­cy of mem­oir, and often feel more like films than fic­tion. The Monot­o­nous Chaos of Exis­tence got me think­ing about sim­i­lar­ly semi-sur­re­al and ecsta­t­ic truth tellers Denis John­son and Chester Himes, a com­par­i­son that will have to do for now because I’m still dizzy and not exact­ly think­ing straight after read­ing these inter­ro­ga­tions of the cru­el­ty and absur­di­ty of occu­pa­tion and so-called post-colo­nial­ism. Clear-eyed personal/political sto­ry­telling that is excit­ing, askew, and challenging.”

—Bran­don Soder­berg, coau­thor, I Got a Mon­ster: The Rise and Fall of Amer­i­ca’s Most Cor­rupt Police Squad

March 2022 BookGroup selection was Something Strange, Like Hunger, Short Stories by Malika Moustadraf

February 2022 BookGroup selection was The Fortune Men, by Nadifa Mohamed

A Book­er Prize final­ist, Nad­i­fa Mohamed’s nov­el The For­tune Men is based on a true event, the sto­ry of a mur­der, a mis­car­riage of jus­tice, and a man too inno­cent for his times — “a blues song cut straight from the heart … brought alive with sub­tle artistry and heart­break­ing human­i­ty” (Wal­ter Mosley, best-sell­ing author of Dev­il in a Blue Dress). In Cardiff, Wales in 1952, Mah­mood Mat­tan, a young Soma­li sailor, is accused of a crime he did not com­mit: the bru­tal killing of Vio­let Volac­ki, a shop­keep­er from Tiger Bay. At first, Mah­mood believes he can ignore the fin­gers point­ing his way; he may be a gam­bler and a pet­ty thief, but he is no mur­der­er. He is a father of three, secure in his inno­cence and his belief in British jus­tice. But as the tri­al draws clos­er, his prospect for free­dom dwin­dles. Now, Mah­mood must stage a ter­ri­fy­ing fight for his life, with all the chips stacked against him: a shod­dy inves­ti­ga­tion, an inhu­mane legal sys­tem, and, most evi­dent­ly, per­va­sive and deep-root­ed racism at every step. Under the shad­ow of the hangman’s noose, Mah­mood begins to real­ize that even the truth may not be enough to save him. A haunt­ing tale of mis­car­ried jus­tice, this book offers a chill­ing look at the dark cor­ners of our humanity.