Readers > Adult & teen lists > The Muslim World in Fiction
The Muslim World in Fiction
From the classic tale of 1,001 Arabian Nights to Nobel Prize–winning Najib Mahfuz's masterwork, The Cairo Trilogy, stories from the Muslim world have fascinated people for centuries. Enjoy your visit with the people of Afghanistan, Egypt, Iraq, and many other countries as you explore these tales from the comfort of your armchair. Check out our blogs and Staff Picks lists for more book, music and movie recommendations.
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Alameddine, Rabih -
(2008)Alameddine's astonishingly inventive, wonderfully exuberant novel takes readers from the shimmering dunes of ancient Egypt to the war-torn streets of 21-century Lebanon. The Hakawati is a funny, captivating novel that enchants and dazzles.
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(2006)This dazzling anthology features the work of 79 outstanding writers from all over the Arab-speaking world, from Morocco in the west to Iraq in the east, Syria in the north to Sudan in the south.
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Aslam, Nadeem -
(2008)From the author of Maps for Lost Lovers comes a new novel — at once lyrical and blistering — about war in modern times, told through the lives of five people who come together in post-9/11 Afghanistan.
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Drew, Alan -
(2009)Powerful, emotional, and beautifully written, Drew's stunning first novel brings to life two unforgettable families — one Kurdish, one American — and the sacrifice and love that bind them together.
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Hosseini, Khaled -
(2003)The first Afghan novel to be written in English, this is an epic tale of fathers and sons, of friendship and betrayal, that takes us from Afghanistan in the final days of the monarchy to the United States and back to contemporary Afghanistan.
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Khadra, Yasmina -
(2006)Dr. Amin Jaafari, an Arab-Israeli citizen, is a respected surgeon in Tel Aviv. When police declare that his dead wife was the suicide bomber who destroyed a restaurant, he is torn between cherished memories of their years together and the inescapable realization that the woman he loved had a life far removed from the comfortable existence they shared.
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Khan, Uzma Aslam -
(2009)Follow scientist Amal, and her blind sister Mehwish, their heretical grandfather Zahoor, and Noman, the young man who changes all their lives. As the tale unfolds in Pakistan, where religious fundamentalists and the mujaheddin gather power, scientists and poets come under threat.
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Lalami, Laila -
(2005)In this debut of an exciting new voice in fiction, Lalami evokes the grit and enduring grace that is modern Morocco. The book begins as four Moroccans illegally cross the Strait of Gibraltar in an inflatable boat headed for Spain. What has driven them to risk their lives?
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Matar, Hisham -
(2007)In 1979 Libya, nine-year-old Suleiman endures his mother's increasingly disturbing bedside stories full of old family bitterness. With his father away on business, Suleiman is soon caught up in a world he cannot hope to understand in this novel that offers a stunning depiction of a child confronted with the private fallout of a public nightmare.
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Mueenuddin, Daniyal -
(2009)In the spirit of James Joyce's Dubliners, Mueenuddin's collection of linked stories illuminates a place and a people through an examination of the entwined lives of landowners and their retainers on the Gurmani family farm in Lahore, Pakistan.
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Rahimi, Atiq -
(2009)Winner of the Prix Goncourt award, The Patience Stone captures with great courage and spare, poetic prose the reality of everyday life for an intelligent woman under the oppressive weight of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.
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Rushdie, Salman -
(1996)Nine stories that reveal the oceanic distances and the unexpected intimacies between East and West.
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Shafak, Elif -
(2008)In her second novel written in English, one of Turkey's most acclaimed and outspoken writers confronts her country's violent past, in a vivid and colorful tale about the tangled histories of two families.
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Tamir, Zakaria -
(2009)A new novella from the veteran Syrian writer, with some of his classic stories.
