The Other Middle East

WARNING

You are viewing an older version of the Yalebooks website. Please visit out new website with more updated information and a better user experience: https://www.yalebooks.com

An Anthology of Modern Levantine Literature

Franck Salameh

View Inside Format: Hardcover
Price: $50.00
YUP
Our shopping cart only supports Mozilla Firefox. Please ensure you're using that browser before attempting to purchase.

This unique literary collection offers a window on the contemporary Levant, a region comprising most of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Palestine, Israel, Cyprus, parts of southern Turkey and northwestern Iraq, and the Sinai Peninsula. Originally written in Arabic, French, Aramaic, Lebanese, Egyptian, and Hebrew, and reflecting an extraordinary diversity of cultures, faiths, traditions, and languages, the selections in this book also convey a wide range of ideas and perspectives, to offer readers a nuanced understanding of the mosaic that is the contemporary Middle East. Franck Salameh, who compiled this anthology over the course of more than two decades, introduces and annotates each selection for the benefit of the uninitiated reader, offering background on the various peoples and politics of the Levant. In these pages, we discover a Middle East in which, as one writer puts it, “an Armenian and a Turk can still hold hands in the midst of massacres.”

Franck Salameh is associate professor of Near Eastern studies at Boston College and the author of Language, Memory, and Identity in the Middle East.

"Franck Salameh is a fearless, unorthodox maverick among intellectual historians of the Middle East. This book challenges the imageries, beliefs, complacencies, and paradigms protected by traditional scholarship. He shatters stereotypes about a grim tormented region and offers a fresh window on this part of the world."—Robert Rabil, Florida Atlantic University

"The Other Middle East is a must-read volume for anyone wanting to have greater insight into Levantine literature and the rich mosaic of ethnicities, religions, languages, and cultures of the region. Compiled by noted scholar Franck Salameh, it presents a surprising range of sentiments and ideas that defies common Western misconceptions and prejudices. In this way, the Western reader is provided with a powerful new understanding of the contemporary Middle East."—Uzi Rabi, Tel-Aviv University

“This book should be required reading for students of the Middle East as well as for journalists and policy makers working in the region.”—Lara Deeb, Scripps College

"In this rich collection of writings from diverse languages, Salameh documents a vigorous rejection of linguistic dogmatism, nationalist rigidities and cultural parochialism. He recovers the possibilities of cosmopolitan harmony in a region wracked by competing attempts to impose parochial ideologies rooted solely in Arabic. The book is essential for students of the modern Middle East."—Ilan Troen, Brandeis University
ISBN: 9780300204445
Publication Date: January 9, 2018
408 pages, 6 1/8 x 9 1/4