Machine derived contents note: Introduction -- Ibrahim Abdel Meguid (b. 1946) Egypt -- from No One Sleeps in Alexandria -- Mohammad Abdul-Wali (1940?73) Yemen -- Ya Khabiir -- Yahya Taher Abdullah (1942?81) Egypt -- Rhythms in Slow Time -- Leila Abouzeid (b. 1950) Morocco -- The Discontented -- Yusuf Abu Rayya (b. 1955) Egypt -- Dreams Seen by a Blind Boy -- Idris Ali (b. 1940) Egypt -- from Dongola -- Daisy Al-Amir (b. 1935) Iraq -- The Doctor?s Prescription -- Radwa Ashour (b. 1946) Egypt -- I Saw the Date-Palms -- Ibrahim Aslan (b. 1939) Egypt -- The Little Girl in Green -- from Nile Sparrows -- Alaa Al Aswany (b. 1957) Egypt -- from The Yacoubian Building -- Liana Badr (b. 1950) Palestine -- from A Land of Stone and Thyme -- Hala El Badry (b. 1954) Egypt -- from A Certain Woman -- Salwa Bakr (b. 1949) Egypt -- Dotty Noona -- from The Golden Chariot -- Hoda Barakat (b. 1952) Lebanon -- from The Tiller of Waters -- Mohammed Barrada (b. 1938) Morocco -- Life by Installments -- Mohamed El-Bisatie (b. 1938) Egypt -- Drought -- from Clamor of the Lake -- Mohamed Choukri (1935?2003) Morocco -- Flower Crazy -- Rashid al-Daif (b. 1945) Lebanon -- from Dear Mr. Kawabata -- Zayd Mutee? Dammaj (1943?98) Yemen -- from The Hostage -- Brahim Dargouthi (b. 1955) Tunisia -- Apples of Paradise -- Ahmad Faqih (b. 1942) Libya -- from Gardens of the Night -- Fathy Ghanem (1924?98) Egypt -- Sunset -- Gamal al-Ghitani (b. 1945) Egypt -- from Zayni Barakat -- Nabil Gorgy (b. 1944) Egypt -- Cairo Is a Small City -- Abdou Gubeir (b. 1950) Egypt -- Have You Seen Alexandria Station? -- Emile Habiby (1921?96) Palestine -- At Last the Almond Blossomed -- Tawfik al-Hakim (1898?1987) Egypt -- from Diary of a Country Prosecutor -- Yahya Hakki (1905?92) Egypt -- from The Lamp of Umm Hashim -- A Story from Prison -- Sherif Hetata (b. 1923) Egypt -- from The Net -- Bensalem Himmich (b. 1949) Morocco -- from The Polymath -- Taha Hussein (1889?1973) Egypt -- from A Man of Letters -- Gamil Atia Ibrahim (b. 1937) Egypt -- The Old Man -- Sonallah Ibrahim (b. 1937) Egypt -- from Zaat -- from The Committee -- Ulfat Idilbi (b. 1912) Syria -- from Sabriya: Damascus Bitter Sweet -- Yusuf Idris (1927?91) Egypt -- House of Flesh -- from City of Love and Ashes -- Walid Ikhlassi (b. 1935) Syria -- The Dead Afternoon -- Jabra Ibrahim Jabra (1919?94) Palestine -- from In Search of Walid Masoud -- Said al-Kafrawi (b. 1939) Egypt -- The Hill of Gypsies -- Ghassan Kanafani (1936?72) Palestine -- The Slave Fort -- from Men in the Sun -- Sahar Khalifeh (b. 1941) Palestine -- from Wild Thorns -- Edwar al-Kharrat (b. 1926) Egypt -- from Rama and the Dragon -- Betool Khedairi (b. 1965) Iraq -- from A Sky So Close -- Elias Khoury (b. 1948) Lebanon -- from The Journey of Little Gandhi -- Mohamed Khudayir (b. 1942) Iraq -- Clocks Like Horses -- Ibrahim al-Koni (b. 1948) Libya -- from The Bleeding of the Stone -- The Ill-Omened Golden Bird -- Naguib Mahfouz (1911?2006) Egypt -- The Conjurer Made Off with the Dish -- from Arabian Nights and Days -- from Palace Walk -- Mohamed Makhzangi (b. 1950) Egypt -- The Pilot -- Alia Mamdouh (b. 1944) Iraq -- Presence of the Absent Man -- Hanna Mina (b. 1924) Syria -- from Fragments of Memory -- Ahlam Mosteghanemi (b. 1953) Algeria -- from Memory in the Flesh -- Sabri Moussa (b. 1932) Egypt -- Benevolence -- ?Abd al-Rahman Munif (1933?2004) saudi Arabia -- from Endings -- Muhammad al Murr (b. 1955) United Arab Emirates -- Your Uncle Was a Poet -- Buthaina Al Nasiri (b. 1947) Iraq -- I?ve Been Here Before -- Emily Nasrallah (b. 1931) Lebanon -- A House Not Her Own -- Ibrahim Nasrallah (b. 1954) Palestine -- from Prairies of Fever -- Haggag Hassan Oddoul (b. 1944) Egypt -- Nights of Musk -- Yusuf al-Qa?id (b. 1944) Egypt -- Three Meaningless Tales -- Abd al-Hakim Qasim (1935?90) Egypt -- The Whistle -- Somaya Ramadan (b. 1951) Egypt -- from Leaves of Narcissus -- Alifa Rifaat (1930?95) Egypt -- An Incident in the Ghobashi Household -- Nawal El Saadawi (b. 1931) Egypt -- She Has No Place in Paradise -- from Woman at Point Zero -- Tayeb Salih (b. 1929) Sudan -- from Season of Migration to the North -- from Bandarshah -- The Cypriot Man -- Ghada Samman (b. 1942) Syria -- A Gypsy without a Haven -- Ibrahim Samouiel (b. 1951) Syria -- My Fellow Passenger -- Habib Selmi (b. 1951) Tunisia -- Distant Seas -- Khairy Shalaby (b. 1938) Egypt -- The Clock -- Hanan al-Shaykh (b. 1945) Lebanon -- The Persian Carpet -- from Beirut Blues -- Miral al-Tahawy (b. 1968) Egypt -- from The Tent -- Bahaa Taher (b. 1935) Egypt -- from Love in Exile -- Fuad al-Takarli (b. 1927) Iraq -- from The Long Way Back -- Zakaria Tamer (b. 1929) Syria -- A Summary of What Happened to Mohammed al-Mahmoudi -- May Telmissany (b. 1965) Egypt -- from Dunyazad -- Mahmoud Teymour (1894?1974) Egypt -- The Comedy of Death -- Abdel Salam al-Ujaili (b. 1918) Syria -- The Dream -- Mahmoud Al-Wardani (b. 1950) Egypt -- The Day Grandpa Came -- Tahir Wattar (b. 1936) Algeria -- from The Earthquake -- Latifa al-Zayyat (1923?96) Egypt -- from The Open Door -- Mohamed Zefzaf (1945?2001) Morocco -- Snake Hunting -- Acknowledgments -- Sources of Stories and Excerpts

Includes bibliographical references (p. 477-486)