Серия "Hoopoe Fiction"

Khaled transcribes testimonies at the Palace of Confessions, a shadowy state-run agency situated in a respectable Cairo suburb. There he encounters Mustafa Ismail: a university professor turned master thief, who breaks into the homes of the great and the good and then blackmails them into silence. Mustafa has dedicated his existence to the perfection of his trade and authored <em>The Book of Safety</em>, the ultimate guide to successful thievery. With cool and incisive prose,...

When an ill-fated, young prostitute and her lover are killed in a gruesome double murder, seasoned investigator Detective Hanash is called in. The case draws him and his team into the poverty of Casablanca&apos;s slums, blighted by criminality, religious extremism, and despair. Hanash&apos;s years on the job have made him intimately familiar with the city&apos;s seedy underbelly, but this time he harbors a personal connection to one of the victims, one he must conceal at all costs.

Gabriel Sherlock arrives in Oman in 1982, fleeing shame and disaster back home in Ireland, and begins an intense affair with a woman whom no one else has seen. Locals insist she must be one of the jinn-a supernatural being-but Gabriel refuses to buy into the folklore, despite her sudden, unexplained disappearance. Twenty-six years later, Irishwoman Thea Kerrigan lands in Muscat, chasing her own ghosts from the past, and is approached by Gabriel, who believes she is his lost lover. Certain that...

Displaced by the sectarian violence in the city, Maha and her husband are taken in by a distant cousin, Youssef. As the growing turmoil around them seeps into their household, a rare argument breaks out between the elderly Youssef and his young guest. Born into sanctions and war, Maha knows nothing of Iraq&apos;s good years that Youssef holds dear. Set over a single day, The Baghdad Eucharist is an intimate story of love, memory, and anguish in one Christian family.

Tales of Yusuf Tadrus is set in the Egyptian Delta town of Tanta, and tells the story of a young Coptic artist from a humble background. It provides an intimate glimpse into Egyptian Christian life, and carefully tells of the struggles faced by an artist who seeks to remain true to his calling. Written with sensitivity and honesty, it addresses an array of social issues in Egypt&apos;s rapidly changing landscape, from fundamentalism to emigration.

In a small Lebanese village a disillusioned imam, diagnosed with terminal cancer, must face his demons. Having consented to an arranged marriage, he has found himself in a loveless union and lusts after another. To please his family, he took up the robe and turban of his forefathers but the expected path to fulfillment did not unfold before him. Meticulous, sparse prose quietly evokes the essence of rural life and the burden of tradition. Hassan Daoud&apos;s masterful novel plumbs the depths of...