Hanan Al Shaykh: 7 books

Since the U.S. publication of Women of Sand and Myrrh--which has now sold more than 35,000 copies and was selected as one of the Fifty Best Books of 1992 by Publishers Weekly--Hanan al-Shaykh has attracted an ever larger following for her dazzling tales of contemporary Arab women. In these seventeen...

With the acclaim won by her first two novels, Hanan al-Shaykh established herself as the Arab world's foremost woman writer. Beirut Blues, published to similar acclaim, further confirms her place in Arabic literature, and brings her writing to a new, groundbreaking level. The daring fragmented...

In a masterly act of literary transformation, celebrated novelist Hanan al-Shaykh re-creates the dramatic life and times of her mother, Kamila.   Married at a young age against her will, Kamila soon fell head-over-heels in love with another man—and was thus forced to choose between her children...

A story from Hanan al-Shaykh to stir the heart and awaken vital conversations about love. A young flies from London to Cairo when she hears her love call for her. But she does not know what he is hiding, the reality that awaits.

A powerful and moving novel, by the Arab worlds  leading woman novelist, about four women coping  with the insular, oppressive society of an unnamed  desert state.

Four strangers meet on a turbulent flight from Dubai to London: Amira, a canny Moroccan prostitute; Lamis, a 30-year old Iraqi divorcee; Nicholas, an English expert on Islamic art; and Samir, a Lebanese man who is delivering a monkey on a mission he doesn’t fully understand. Once safely on British...

On a sunny beach on the Italian Riviera, two thirtysomething women, Yvonne and Huda, relax by the sparkling sea. But despite the setting, as their vacation unfolds, their complicated pasts seep through to the idyllic present. Both women spent their childhoods in Lebanon—Yvonne raised in a Christian...