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
On Sunday, July 31st, we will be talking about the short stories of Ayelet Tsabari in The Best Place on Earth.
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.
Book Review: “The Go-Between” by Osman Yousefzada
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
Malika Moustadraf (1969–2006) is a feminist icon in contemporary Moroccan literature, celebrated for her stark interrogation of gender and sexuality in North Africa. Something Strange, Like Hunger* is the complete collection of Moustadraf’s published short fiction: haunting, visceral stories by a master of the genre. A teenage girl suffers through a dystopian rite of passage, a man with kidney disease makes desperate attempts to secure treatment, and a mother schemes to ensure her daughter passes a virginity test. Delighting in vibrant sensory detail and rich slang, Moustadraf takes an unflinching look at the gendered body, social class, illness, double standards, and desire, as lived by a diverse cast of characters. Blood Feast is a sharp provocation to patriarchal power and a celebration of the life and genius of one of Morocco’s preeminent writers.
* The U.S. title is Blood Feast.
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.
Past Titles Read by TMR’s Bookgroup Include:
- Ayad Akhtar’s novel Homeland Elegies
- Malu Halasa’s novel Mother of All Pigs
- Laila Lalami’s Conditional Citizens
- Hassan Blasim’s short novel God 99
- Dima Alzayat’s Alligator and Other Stories
- Sahar Mustafah’s novel The Beauty in Your Face
- Tobie Nathan’s A Land Like You (reviewed in TMR here)
- Susan Abulhawa’s Against the Loveless World (reviewed in TMR here)
- Hoda Barakat’s Voices of the Lost (reviewed in TMR here)
- Sinan Antoon’s I’jaam
- Omar El Akkad’s What Strange Paradise
- Abdulrazak Gurnah’s Paradise
To join the BookGroup (free, all welcome), send your name to books@themarkaz.org today. The group is captained by Rana Asfour, TMR’s Book Editor.