Review by Lyn Miller-Lachmann Having escaped his narrow-minded and isolated village in Palestine, Saeed moves to the city, marries, opens a bookstore, then returns with his pregnant wife. She gives birth to twin girls – Shams and Qamar – but the family is exiled to the village outskirts, accused of bringing a curse. Although they … Continue reading #WorldKidLit Wednesday: Wondrous Journeys in Strange Lands
Article One of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Samaritan. Carving and photo by the author. During the current catastrophe in the Middle East, it may be reassuring to hear a story of survival. Let’s go back two thousand years to the region confusingly called the Holy Land—confusing, because it was (and is) considered … Continue reading #EndangeredAlphabets: The Survivor Script
Of all the novels I have read about older women this has aroused the strongest emotions in me. The woman, Ruqayya, 70, has held the grief of her family as well as her own suffering since she was 12. Ruqayya was born in a village that was claimed for the new state of Israel, and … Continue reading The Woman from Tantoura by Radwa Ashour
For children’s translated literature, I attempted targeting Arabic as an original language, which significantly limited the pool of children’s writers. This was disheartening for me. In my previous post, I discussed the Royal Diaries series, a historic fiction depiction of diaries from the point of views of real-life princesses. My love for Princess Nzingha of … Continue reading Memories of a GLLI Intern: Must-Read Children’s & YA Books from the Middle East and North Africa (Part 3) – by Nneka Mogbo
Every day I take note of the way I interact with world. I attend a private college in the American south just two hundred miles from where I grew up. I grew up in a suburban town outside Metro Atlanta. My family was one of the few black families in our neighborhood. My parents are … Continue reading Memories of a GLLI Intern: Culture Meet Identity or Identity Meet Culture? (Part 1) – by Nneka Mogbo
Global Literature in Libraries Initiative 