 | Abdullah, Shaila (Pakistan, USA) | PS3601.B43 S24 |
| Saffron Dreams | Ann Arbor, MI: Modern History Press, 2009 |
| This moving short novel describes the difficulties faced by a Pakistani immigrant whose husband is killed in the World Trade Center bombing. She must adjust to a new hostile America, widowhood, and life with a severely handicapped child who was born after her husband's death. |
| |
 | Abu-Jaber, Diana (USA, Iraq) | PS 3551 B895 C74 |
| Crescent | New York: Norton, 2003 |
| The vibrant Arab community of Los Angeles is the subject of this novel about an American -born Muslim woman, the chef in a popular Arab restaurant, and an exiled Iraqi scholar who may find politics overshadows their romance. |
| |
 | Alameddine, Rabih (Lebanon) | PS3551.L215 H35 |
| The Hakawati | New York: Knopf, 2008 |
| A young man returns to Beirut from California because his father is dying. In a dazzling mixture of family history, tales from the Arabian Nights, the Qu'ran, the Bible, mythic histories of fabled warriors, and the political situation in the Middle East, the author becomes a Hakawati (a storyteller) who can hold the reader spellbound. |
| |
 | Alameddine, Rabih (USA, Lebanon) | PS3551.L215 K6 |
| Koolaids: the Art of War | New York: Picador, 1998 |
| This dazzling metafiction set in 1980's San Francisco, follows a group of gay men, some of them Lebanese immigrants, all dying of AIDS. At the same time it cuts back and forth to Lebanon and through news articles, diaries and memories records the horrors of the Civil War which devastated the country between 1975 and 1990. |
| |
 | Al-Mohaimeed, Yousef (Bedouin Saudi Arabia) | PJ7850.U4538 F5513 2007 |
| Wolves of the Crescent Moon | New York: Penguin Original, 2007 |
| This poetic short novel explores the lives of three misfits in Riyadh. First, there is Turad, a Bedouin who lost an ear; next is Tawfik, a former Sudanese slave who was castrated; and finally, Nasir, an orphan who is missing one eye. |
| |
 | Ali, Ahmed (India) | PR 9499.3 A465 T95 |
| Twilight in Delhi | New York: New Directions, 1994 |
| A Muslim family in living in Delhi at the beginning of the twentieth century sees its fortunes fading as the British work to eradicate Islamic culture. |
| |
 | Ali, Monica (Bangladesh) | PR 6101 L45 B75 |
| Brick Lane | New York: Scribner, 2003 |
| This novel is about a young Bangladeshi woman who lives a dutiful life in an arranged marriage in London until she discovers the possibilities of life in a less restrictive country. |
| |
 | Alsanea, Rajaa (Saudi Arabia) | PJ7962.A34 G5 2007 |
| The Girls of Riyadh | New York: Penguin, 2007 |
| Unfolding in a series of emails, the novel explores the lives of four intelligent young women living in the Saudi capital Riyadh. Each one of them tries to complete her education as well as having a fulfilling life as a wife. This novel is the Saudi version of chick lit. In a sense it lifts the veil on the life of women in an unknown society. |
| |
 | Andric, Ivo (Yugoslavia) | PG 1418 A6 D74 |
| The Bridge on the Drina | Chicago: University of Chicago, 1977 |
| This is a historical novel about a bridge built by the Turks over the Drina River in Bosnia. It chronicles the ethnic and religious differences of the region's peoples and how throughout history they have worked and lived together as well as fought and hated. |
| |
 | Ashour, Radwa (Spain, Egypt) | PJ 7814 S514 G4813 |
| Granada | Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2003 |
| This novel follows the family of a Muslim bookmaker in Granada as Christian Spain drives out the last Muslim leaders and forces the population into exile or conversion and new laws make the owning of Arabic books a crime. |
| |
 | Aslan, Nadeem (Pakistan, Great Britain) | PR9540.9.A83 M37 |
| Maps for Lost Lovers | New York: Knopf, 2005 |
| The disappearance and probable murder of a Pakistani immigrant couple who lived together in London without being married sparks a conflict between an idealistic Pakistani social worker and his utterly devout wife as they look at the impact of blind religious zeal on their family. |
| |
 | Aswany, Alaa Al (Egypt) | PJ7814 .S93 |
| Chicago | New York: HarperCollins, 2007 |
| This beautifully written novel looks at the lives of a group of Egyptian doctors doing advanced study at the University of Illinois Medical Center in Chicago. Some have left Egypt for better opportunities in the US; a few have left for political reasons; one is in the employ of the Egyptian government and is keeping track of the behavior of the others. In all, the novel looks at the difficulties of adjusting to a vastly different culture; the prejudices Muslims face and the ethical choices they are forced to make. |
| |
 | Aswany, Alaa Al (Egypt) | PJ7814.S93 N5712 |
| Friendly Fire | Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2009 |
| This collection of short stories, many of them originally banned in Egypt, tell the stories of ordinary men and women struggling with their places in society, their religious beliefs and the government and social hierarchy. |
| |
 | Aswany, Alaa Al (Egypt) | PJ 7814.S93 I4313 |
| The Yacoubian Building | New York: HarperCollins, 2006 |
| A deteriorating, formerly grand building in downtown Cairo is the scene for the many stories of its disparate residents, from the impoverished servants' families living in shacks on the roof to the aging playboy, the crooked politician, and the secretly gay liberal journalist living in the luxurious quarters below. The novel presents a kaleidoscopic portrait of Cairo in the 80's. |
| |
 | Ba, Mariama (Senegal) | PQ 3989.2 B23 S513 |
| So Long A Letter | London: Heinemann, 1981 |
| A woman describes her humiliating experience when her husband decides to take a second wife. |
| |
 | Baugh, Carolyn (Egypt) | PS3602.A9488 V54 2008 |
| The View from Garden City | New York: Forge, 2008 |
| While studying Arabic in Cairo, a young American student learns the stories of the women in her building which becomes more of an education than her university classes. |
| |
 | Ben Jalloun, Tahar (Morocco) | PQ 3989.2 J4 N813 |
| The Sacred Night | San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1989 |
| One of two novels that relate the adventures of a young woman raised as a boy by her father who is hungry for a son. She becomes a beautiful woman after her father dies and discovers the trials of being a Muslim woman. |
| |
 | Ben Jalloun, Tahar (Morocco) | PQ 3989 J4 E613 |
| The Sand Child | Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000 |
| One of two novels that relate the adventures of a young woman raised as a boy by her father who is hungry for a son. She becomes a beautiful woman after her father dies and discovers the trials of being a Muslim woman. |
| |
 | Benaïssa, Slimane (Algeria France USA) | PQ 3989.2 B388 D4713 |
| The Last Night of a Damned Soul | New York: Grove Press, 2004 |
| An American Muslim from a Lebanese family is drawn to fundamentalism and eventually terrorist activity. His family and friends are dismayed at his religious fanaticism and posit questions about the nature and relevance of martyrdom. |
| |
 | Chraibi, Driss (Morocco) | PQ3989.C5 I5613 |
| Inspector Ali | Colorado Springs: Three Continents Press, 1994 |
| Returning to his native village in Morocco from a long period of time in the West, the popular author of a series of detective novels must juggle slavish adulation from his countrymen, writer's block, his wife's pregnancy, his children's adjustment to Morocco, his growing debts, and most of all - his Scottish in-laws visit. |
| |
 | Coovadia, Imraan (South Africa) | PR9369.3.C65 W4 |
| The Wedding | New York: Picador USA, 2008 |
| The story of a mismatched couple who marry in India and eventually emigrate to South Africa where they continue to battle, is related in clever prose. |
| |
 | Daneshvar, Simin (Iran) | PK 6561 D263 S213 |
| Savushun: A Novel about Modern Iran | Washington DC: Mage Publishers, 1990 |
| During World War II, an honest idealistic Iranian landowner is murdered for opposing the British occupation; thus, tearing his family apart. |
| |
 | Dangor, Achmat (South Africa) | PR 9369.3 D26 K33 |
| Kafka's Curse | New York: Pantheon Books, 1999 |
| A fair-skinned Indian in South Africa changes his name and passes for Jewish which leads to disastrous consequences for those around him. |
| |
 | Daswani, Kavita (India) | PS 3604 .A85 S25 2006 |
| Salaam Paris | New York: Plume, 2006 |
| A sheltered Muslim girl leaves Mumbai to meet her prospective husband, the arranged-marriage choice of her autocratic grandfather; and when she ends up as a high-fashion model in Paris, her family disowns her. This novel is an exploration of women's choices and the conflict between traditional roles and the twenty-first century. |
| |
 | Faqir, Fadia (Bedouin, Lebanon, Great Britain) | PJ7862.A3 F36 |
| The Cry of the Dove | New York: Black Cat/Grove/Atlantic, 2007 |
| A young Bedouin woman, who having become pregnant before marriage, must flee her village to avoid being murdered by her brother as the tribal code of honor killings demands. She ends up in England where she creates a new life for herself, but cannot escape the past. |
| |
 | Farah, Nuruddin (Somalia) | PR9396.9.F3 C4 |
| Close Sesame | St. Paul: Graywolf Press, 1992 |
| The third book in the author's trilogy on how a repressive regime destroys the people within it. |
| |
 | Farah, Nuruddin (Somalia) | PR9396.9 F3M3 |
| Maps | Pantheon, 1987 |
| A child born with magical powers lives through the upheavals of a war for liberation. |
| |
 | Farah, Nuruddin (Somalia) | PR9396.9.F3 S2 |
| Sardines | St. Paul: Graywolf Press, 1992 |
| A woman editor loses her job and at the same time is trying to develop a sense of dignity in her daughter in the face of the dual obstacles of an oppressive dictatorship and the conservative Islamic traditions of her people. |
| |
 | Farah, Nuruddin (Somalia) | PR9396.9.F3 S9 |
| Sweet & Sour Milk | St. Paul: Graywolf Press, 1992 |
| A young man searches for the reasons his twin brother has been murdered by the brutal Somalia dictatorship. |
| |
 | Ghosh, Amitav (India, Egypt) | DT56.2.G48 1994 |
| In an Antique Land | New York: Knopf, 1994 |
| A young Indian anthropologist spends several months in an Egyptian village learning about the culture. At the same time he researches a medieval manuscript about a Jewish merchant and his Indian slave who lived during the twelfth century in Cairo, Aden and Mangalore in a multicultural and more tolerant world. |
| |
 | Guene, Faiza (Algeria, France) | PQ3989.3.G84 K5413 |
| Kiffe, Kiffe Tomorrow | Orlando: Harcourt, 2006 |
| Growing up in a housing project in the Paris suburbs, Doria is an Algerian immigrant whose father has deserted the family. She must confront, racism, gang violence and her burgeoning sexuality in this coming-of-age novel about Muslim immigrants in France. |
| |
 | Gurnah, Abdulrazak (Zanzibar) | PR 9399.9 G87 B95 |
| By the Sea | New York: New Press, 2001 |
| This novel is about a political refugee from Zanzibar who is seeking to make a new life in England. There he encounters a distant relative who, in his memory, was involved in the downfall of his family. This is a beautiful novel about political betrayal and the inaccuracy of memory. |
| |
 | Hamid, Mohsin (Pakistan) | PS 3558 A12 M68 |
| Moth Smoke | New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 2000 |
| This Pakistani version of the Great Gatsby follows the downfall of a bright former bank employee whose descent into drug abuse and crime takes place during the explosive summer when India and Pakistan both test their atomic weapons. |
| |
 | Hamid, Mohsin | PS3558.A42169 R45 |
| The Reluctant Fundamentalist | Orlando: Harcourt, 2007 |
| After 9/11, a Pakistani young man who is living the American Dream in the USA as a Princeton graduate who has a beautiful girlfriend and who is employed by a large financial firm, suddenly develops sympathy for the suicide bombers. In the novel he is explaining his life to a mysterious American in a cafe in Lahore. (Pakistan, Lahore) |
| |
 | Hanif, Mohammed | PR6108.A55 C37 2008 |
| A Case of Exploding Mangoes | New York: Knopf, 2008 |
| This novel fictionalizes the assassination of Zia-ul-Haq, one of Pakistan's former Presidents. (Pakistan) |
| |
 | Hosseini, Khaled (Afghanistan) | PS 3608 O525 K58 |
| The Kite Runner | New York: Riverhead Books, 2003 |
| A successful American writer of Afghani descent returns to Kabul to rescue the son of a childhood friend whose parents have been executed by the Taliban. In the course of his journey he must make amends for the betrayals of his youth. |
| |
 | Hosseini, Khaled (Afghanistan) | PS3608.O832 T5 2007 |
| A Thousand Splendid Suns | New York: Riverhead Books, 2007 |
| The novel examines the lives of two Afghani women, Mariam and Laila, co-wives to the brutal Rasheed. Beginning with Mariam's childhood in the time before the Soviet invasion, the story explores the country's war-torn history and its effects on women. |
| |
 | Ibrahim, Sun`Allah (Egypt) | PJ 7838 B7173 L313 |
| The Committee | Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2001 |
| In this novel an intellectual appears before a mysterious committee in order to justify his life. This Kafkaesque short novel describes the horror of being trapped by a totalitarian bureaucracy, having no way out. |
| |
 | Kadare, Ismail (Albania) | PG 9621 K3 T7513 |
| Elegy for Kosovo | New York: Arcade Pub, 2000 |
| This novel chronicles the Battle of Kosovo, 1389, in which the Turks definitively defeated the Serbs and added the Balkans to the Ottoman Empire. This novel is told from the points of view of three minstrels from the three warring factions. |
| |
 | Kadare, Ismail (Albania) | PG 9621 K3 U713 |
| The Three-Arched Bridge | New York: Arcade Pub, 1997 |
| This novel narrates the story of how the Turks built a bridge over a river in Albania just before the Ottoman invasion, and how the bridge effected the peasants in the region who were about to see their way of life irrevocably changed. |
| |
 | Kureishi, Hanif (Great Britain, Pakistan) | PR6061.U68 B77 |
| The Black Album | New York: Scribner, 1996 |
| A British Muslim college student is torn between his new friends who are extremely conservative Muslims and the British woman who is his lover. The novel demonstrates the pull of fundamental religion on young impressionable individuals. |
| |
 | Livaneli, O.Z. (Zülfü) | PL248.L58 M8813 2006 |
| Bliss | New York: St. Martin's, 2006 |
| A fifteen-year-old rape victim refuses to hang herself. A cousin is ordered to take her to Istanbul and see that she dies along the way; however, he also cannot kill her and together they find sanctuary as the crew on a large sailboat owned by a wealthy professor fleeing a privileged life. |
| |
 | Maalouf, Amin (Central Asia, Persia) | Johnson County Library (FICTION Maalouf Amin) |
| Samarkand | New York: Interlink Pub, 1996 |
| This novel recreates the life of the poet Omar Khayyam in eleventh century Central Asia and follows the fortunes of one of his manuscripts until its purported loss during the sinking of the Titanic at the beginning of the twentieth century. |
| |
 | Mahfuz, Najib (also spelled Mafouz, Naguib) (Egypt) | PJ 7846 A46 Z4813 |
| Midaq Alley | New York: Anchor Books, 1992 |
| Another view of life in a Cairo neighborhood, this one more light-hearted than most of the author's other works. |
| |
 | Mahfuz, Najib (also spelled Mafouz, Naguib) (Egypt) | PJ 7846 A46 M513 |
| Miramar | Colorado Spring: Three Continents Press, 1996 |
| The lives of residents of an Alexandrian pension are thrown into an upheaval by a young female servant. |
| |
 | Mahfuz, Najib (also spelled Mafouz, Naguib) (Egypt) | PJ 7846 A46 B313 |
| Palace Walk: The Cairo Trilogy, Part I | New York: Doubleday, 1990 |
| The Nobel Prize winning author chronicles the fate of an Egyptian family from 1917 to 1944, presenting a dynamic account of Egypt's social and political development. Each of the three novels can be read separately. |
| |
 | Mahfuz, Najib (also spelled Mafouz, Naguib) (Egypt) | PJ 7846 A46 Q313 |
| Palace of Desire: The Cairo Trilogy, Part II | New York: Doubleday, 1991 |
| A Nobel Prize winning author chronicles the fate of an Egyptian family from 1917 to 1944, presenting a dynamic account of Egypt's social and political development. Each of the three novels can be read separately. |
| |
 | Mahfuz, Najib (also spelled Mafouz, Naguib) (Egypt) | PJ 7846 A46 S913 |
| Sugar Street: The Cairo Trilogy, Part III | New York: Doubleday, 1992 |
| The Nobel Prize winning author chronicles the fate of an Egyptian family from 1917 to 1944 in a trilogy of which this is the third volume. He presents a dynamic account of Egypt's social and political development. Each of the three novels can be read separately. |
| |
 | Makiya, Kanan (Iraq) | PR 6113 A58 R64 |
| The Rock: A Tale of Seventh Century Jerusalem | New York: Pantheon Books, 2001 |
| This novel by a well-known Iraqi dissident tells the story of the early years of Islam and of the building of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. The novel attempts to reconcile the beliefs of Islam and Judaism. |
| |
 | Mamdouh, Alia (Iraq) | PJ 7846.A543H3312 |
| Naphtalene: A Novel of Baghdad | New York: Feminist Press, 2005 |
| In the time of revolution in Iraq, a young girl is growing up resenting the strictures put on her by society women. |
| |
 | Marouane, Leila (Algeria) | PQ 3989.2 M257 R5813 |
| The Abductor | London: Quartet, 2000 |
| When, in a fit of anger, a brutish Algerian fisherman divorces his meek wife, she must marry and divorce someone else before he can remarry her. Unfortunately, the mild-mannered neighbor whom he chooses as her temporary spouse turns out to be something unexpected. This novel told from the point of view of one of the six daughters, who remain with their father in the house, is in turns funny and tragic as it describes how life in a traditional household can become tyranny of the worst sort. |
| |
 | Mueenuddin, Daniyal (Pakistan) | PR9540.9.M84 I52 |
| In Other Rooms, Other Wonders | New York: Norton, 2009 |
| This related collection of short stories focuses on members of a wealthy Pakistani family who have lost touch with the land. Ranging through generations and sometimes about servants who work for the family, each story is a bittersweet jewel about life and deprivation for both rich and poor. |
| |
 | Nasr, Hassan (Tunisia) | PJ7852.A685 D3713 |
| Return to Dar-al-Basha | Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2006 |
| In this short poetic novel a man who has been abused by his autocratic father returns to his home after forty years of wandering. In reviewing his life he finds a sense of closure. This novel has a strong Sufi orientation. |
| |
 | Pamuk, Orhan (Turkey) | PL 248 P34 K3713 |
| The Black Book | New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1994 |
| A jealous husband searches for his missing wife assuming the identity of her half-brother, a famous journalist in this novel of stolen identity in contemporary Istanbul. |
| |
 | Pamuk, Orhan (Turkey) | PL 248 P34 B4613 |
| My Name is Red | New York: Knopf, 2001 |
| This is a challenging and exciting narrative about the time when the Ottoman Empire began its decline. It tells the story of the search for the murderer of a manuscript illustrator. Along the way the novel discusses the nature of art, the place of art in Islam, fundamentalism and also manages to be a love story. |
| |
 | Pamuk, Orhan (Turkey) | PL 248 P34 Y9313 |
| The New Life | New York: Farrar Straus and Giroux, 1997 |
| A university student reads a book that completely changes his perspective on life causing him to embark on an odyssey of aimless bus rides throughout the back roads of Turkey. He seems to be seeking the angel of death and what he discovers is a bizarre conspiracy to keep the book from readers and another conspiracy to countermand the first. Like much of the author's fiction the book is a meditation on the influence of the west on Turkish culture. |
| |
 | Pamuk, Orhan (Turkey) | PL248.P34 K36513 |
| Snow | New York: Knopf, 2004 |
| In this haunting novel, a poet who has lived abroad for many years returns to Turkey and investigates the suicides of several young women who have been expelled from the secular state university for refusing to remove their head scarves. |
| |
 | Pamuk, Orhan (Turkey) | PL 248 P34 W4713 |
| The White Castle | New York: Braziller, 1991 |
| This novel of seventeenth century Turkey tells the story of an educated Italian who is captured by the Turks and becomes a slave of a scholar. The two become so close that in the end it becomes a question of who is the master and who the slave. |
| |
 | Parsipur, Shahmush (Iran) | PK 6561 .P247 T8413 |
| Touba and the Meaning of Night | New York: Feminist Press, 2006 |
| Eighty dramatic years in Iran--from the turn of the 20th-century to the 1979 revolution--are witnessed through Touba's chador-covered eyes in this bold, insightful novel. The novel is realistic in its exploration of Iranian history, but also has touches of magic realism as Touba becomes involved with a Sufi teacher. |
| |
 | Parvin, Manoucher (Iran) | PS 3566 A7725 C79 |
| Cry for My Revolution, Iran | Costa Mesa: Mazda Publishers, 1987 |
| A novel about the political upheavals of modern Iran. |
| |
 | Pizishkzad, Iraj (Iran) | PK 6561 P54 D313 |
| My Uncle Napoleon | Washington DC: Mage Publishers, 1996 |
| This is a farcical look at star-crossed lovers in an Iranian family headed by a dictatorial uncle. This novel was a best seller in Iran and became a popular TV series. |
| |
 | Rahimi, Atiq | PK6878.9.R34 S9613 2009 |
| The Patience Stone: Sang-e Saboor | New York: Other Press, 2009 |
| In Persian folklore, Syngue Sabour is the name of a magical black stone, a patience stone, which absorbs the plight of those who confide in it. It is believed that the day it explodes, after having received too much hardship and pain, will be the day of the Apocalypse. But here, the Syngue Sabour is not a stone buth rather a man lying brain-dead with a bullet lodged in his neck. His wife is with him, sitting by his side. But she resents him for having sacrificed her to the war, for never being able to resist the call to arms, for wanting to be a hero, and in the end, after all was said and done, for being incapacitated in a small skirmish. |
| |
| Rushdie, Salman (India/Pakistan) | PR9499.3 R8M5 |
| Midnight's Children | New York: Knopf, 1981 |
| This satiric novel about the creation of the modern Indian State is narrated in magic realism style. It follows the fortunes of those children who were born at midnight of the day independence was declared. This novel won the Booker Prize. (Kashmir(partially)) |
| |
| Rushdie, Salman (India/Pakistan) | PR9499.3 R8M5 |
| Shame | New York: Knopf, 1983 |
| This is the author's fanciful retelling of the history of modern Pakistan. |
| |
 | Sacco, Joe | DS119.7.S29 |
| Footnotes in Gaza | New York: Metropolitan Books, 2009 |
| The graphic novelist writes about an incident in 1956 in Gaza that still reverberates with its residents and fuels their hatred of the Israelis. |
| |
 | Sacco, Joe (USA, Palestine) | DS 119.7.S23 |
| Palestine | Seattle: Fantagraphics, 2001 |
| Political cartoonist Sacco captures life under a long and repressive occupation. This is a graphic novel. |
| |
 | Sa´dawi, Nawal also spelled Saadawi, Nawal El (Egypt) | PJ7862.A3 W6 |
| Woman at Point Zero | London: Zed books, 1983 |
| This brief novel describes the life of an Egyptian woman condemned to death for murder. She was brutalized by her uncle and virtually every man with whom she was in contact, became a high-priced prostitute and eventually was driven to violence. |
| |
 | Said, Kurban (Azerbaijan) | PT 2637 A433 A413 |
| Ali and Nino | New York: Random House, 1970 |
| During the collapse of the Russian Empire after World War I, young couples from different backgrounds - he a Muslim, she a Christian, - try to find happiness and political freedom in what has become present-day Azerbaijan. |
| |
 | Said, Kurban (Azerbaijan) | PT 2637 A433 M313 |
| The Girl from the Golden Horn | Woodstock: Overlook Press, 2001 |
| After the fall of the Ottoman Empire, a daughter of the royal family is in exile with her father in Germany. She attempts to reconcile life in the west with her Islamic upbringing with varying degrees of success. |
| |
 | Satrapi, Marjane (Iran, France) | ML 419.K495 S313 2006 |
| Chicken with Plums | New York: Pantheon Books, 2006 |
| This poignant graphic work tells the story of the author's great uncle, a brilliant musician whose irreplaceable stringed instrument, called a Tar, is broken and without it he is nothing so he takes to his bed where he has visions of his entire life and then dies because the music has gone out of his life. |
| |
 | Satrapi, Marjane (Iran, France) | PN 6747.S245 P4713 |
| Persepolis | New York: Pantheon, 2003 |
| Translated from the French, this is the autobiographical story of the author's life in Iran as a woman after the revolution that overthrew the Shah. |
| |
 | Satrapi, Marjane (Iran, France) | PN 6747.S245 P4913 |
| Persepolis Two | New York: Pantheon, 2004 |
| The second part of the author's biographical work tells how she was forced to return to Iran when her life fell apart in the West. |
| |
 | Schami, Rafik (Syria) | PT 2680 A448 E713 |
| Damascus Nights | New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1993 |
| A group of old friends gather together each night and tell each other stories that are both fanciful, and real. |
| |
 | Schami, Rafik (Syria) | PT2680.A448 D8613 |
| The Dark Side of Love | Northampton: Interlink Books, 2009 |
| Two feuding Syrian families, the Catholic Mushtaks and the Orthodox Shahins are involved in a blood feud that has gone on in their village for generations. This novel examines the consequences when Farid Mushtak and Rana Shahin fall in love and try to find happiness. This novel is set against the backdrop of twentieth century Syrian and Middle East politics. |
| |
 | Selimovic, Mesa (Yugoslavia) | PG 1419.29 E43 D413 |
| Death and the Dervish | Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1996 |
| A religious leader develops an elaborate plot to gain revenge for the murder of his brother. However, the plot fails and he himself becomes a victim. |
| |
 | Seraji, Mahbod (Iran) | PS3619.E7356 R66 2009 |
| Rooftops of Tehran | New American Library, 2009 |
| In 1973, a teenaged boy spends the summer falling in love with his beautiful neighbor; however, she is betrothed to a local radical. The boy unwittingly betrays his rival to the Shah's secret police provoking misery for all involved. |
| |
 | Sethi, Ali (Pakistan) | PR9540.9.S46 W57 2009 |
| The Wish Maker | New York: Riverhead Books, 2009 |
| Raised in a family of strong women, a young man becomes close to his slightly older and wilder female cousin. Later he goes to school in the United States, but comes home to see her marry. The novel tells the history of Pakistan through the cousins and their parents' and grandparents' lives. |
| |
 | Shafak, Elif (Turkey) | PS3619.H328 B37 2007 |
| The Bastard of Istanbul | New York: Viking, 2007 |
| The American daughter of an Armenian mother and Turkish step-father goes to Istanbul to visit her large eccentric Turkish family comprised of only women. She is looking for answers about the Armenian genocide and hoping to connect with her relatives. The author was charged, but not convicted of insulting "Turkishness" when the novel was published. |
| |
 | Shafak, Elif (Turkey) | PL 248 .S474 M3413 |
| The Gaze | New York: Marion Boyars, 2006 |
| A dwarf and a grotesquely obese woman live together, only going out together in disguise in order to avoid the stares of people on the street. He is writing a dictionary of "Gazes” which examines how people look at each other and at themselves. Alternating with the story of a nineteenth century freak show in Istanbul, the novel examines how we become and how we fear what we see reflected in others eyes. |
| |
 | Shafak, Elif (Turkey, Morocco, Spain, USA) | PS 3619 .H328 S25 |
| The Saint of Incipient Insanities | New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 2004 |
| This novel follows the downward spiral of three foreign graduate students living in Boston. Filled with bittersweet humor, the men struggle to make sense of their world and the women to whom they are attracted. At times they are aloof from the temptations, at others they dive into all the allures of their new home, usually with disastrous results. |
| |
 | Shamsie, Kamila (Pakistan) | PR 9540.9 S485 K37 |
| Kartography | Orlando: Harcourt, 2003 |
| When a young couple, living in Karachi, who have been "soul mates" throughout their lives, are separated from each other by his parents’ decision to move to London where their son will be safe, they exist through letters that describe the volatility of life in Pakistan and the hope for a better world. |
| |
 | Shamsie, Kamila (Pakistan) | PR 9499.3 S45 S53 |
| Salt and Saffron | New York: Bloomsbury, 2000 |
| This is a witty story about the strength of family ties and class differences. In it, an educated young Pakistani woman from an aristocratic family, who have been bitterly divided since the partition of India, learns about the family history and myths while struggling to resist the attraction of a young man from the wrong background. |
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 | Shaykh, Hanan (Lebanon) | PJ 7862 H356 H5513 |
| The Story of Zahra | New York: Anchor Books, 1994 |
| A young dutiful Muslim woman is caught up in the civil war in Lebanon and makes choices of which her family disapproves. |
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 | Soueif, Ahdaf (Egypt) | PR6069.O78 M37 |
| The Map of Love | New York: Anchor Books, 2000 |
| In the early twentieth century, a British widow goes to Egypt where she falls in love with an Egyptian. Almost a hundred years later, one of her descendants finds herself repeating the love story. This novel was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. |
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 | Suri, Manil (India) | PS 3569 U725 D43 |
| The Death of Vishnu | New York: Norton, 2001 |
| A poor man lies dying on the landing of a Mumbai apartment house, dreaming about his wasted life and all the while the residents of the apartment argue about who should be responsible for him. |
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 | Tekin, Latife (Turkey) | PL 248.T35 B4713 |
| Berji Kristin: Tales from the Garbage Hills | London: Marion Boyars, 1996 |
| In this autobiographical novel, a group of homeless families from the Turkish provinces build a shanty town on top of a garbage dump and try to make a life for themselves despite the rain of chemical pollution and government hostility they encounter. The novel is full of folk tales and wisdom and reflects the fatalistic attitude of the squatters. |
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 | Tekin, Latife (Turkey) | PL 248.T35 S4813 |
| Dear Shameless Death | New York: Marion Boyars, 2001 |
| This novel chronicles the life of a young girl growing up in modern Turkey from her birth is a village to her traumatic move to Istanbul. Replete with episodes of magic realism and imbued with a feminist sensibility as the protagonist struggles with her overbearing mother, the novel was a best-seller in Turkey. |
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 | Tlili, Mustapha (Tunisia) | PQ 3989.2 T58 M6613 |
| Lion Mountain | Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1998 |
| The novel describes the struggle of a woman to maintain her integrity during the French occupation. |
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 | Toer, Pramoedya (Indonesia) | PL 5089 T8 A25 |
| Child of All Nations | New York: W. Morrow, 1993 |
| The novel chronicles the story of Indonesia's struggle against Dutch colonialism. |
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 | Toer, Pramoedya (Indonesia) | PL 5089 T8 F84 |
| The Fugitive | New York: W. Morrow, 1990 |
| An Indonesian political fugitive flees to his home in the countryside where he is betrayed. |
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 | Toer, Pramoedya (Indonesia) | PL 5089 T8 G3313 |
| The Girl from the Coast | New York: Hyperion East, 2002 |
| At the beginning of the twentieth century this novel describes how a young woman from a fishing village is married to a wealthy aristocrat, only to discover that when she has a child, the marriage is only a "practice marriage" and she will be separated from her baby and discarded. |
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 | Toer, Pramoedya (Indonesia) | PL 5089 T8 B8413 |
| This Earth of Mankind | New York: W. Morrow, 1991 |
| This novel follows Child of All Nations. It continues the story of the struggle of the Indonesian peoples for independence from the Netherlands. |
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| Yashar, Kemal (Turkey) | PL 248 Y275 A5 |
| Anatolian Tales | New York: Dodd Mead, 1969 |
| This collection of short stories describes the harshness and cruelty of life in Turkish villages in the beginning of the twentieth century. |
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 | Yashar, Kemal (Turkey) | PL 248 Y275 I513 |
| Memed, My Hawk | New York: Pantheon books, 1961 |
| A Turkish peasant is forced to become a bandit when unjustly accused by the large landowner in the district. |
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 | Yashar, Kemal (Turkey) | PL 248 Y275 I513 |
| They Burn the Thistles | New York: Morrow, 1973 |
| The sequel to Memed My Hawk, this novel continues the saga of Turkey’s Robin Hood who with his allies fights the injustice of the landowners toward the peasants. |
