Dar Arab

The War is a haunting, psychologically rich novel about memory, love, and the invisible wounds carried long after the battlefield falls silent. On a snowy night in suburban America, Issa Saleh prepares to welcome Krystyna—his closest friend, caretaker, and the woman who once pushed him toward a war he barely survived. But as he searches for her through his house, she seems to vanish into thin air. What begins as an anxious wait spirals into a hallucinatory collapse in which the borders between the present and the Dhofar war of his youth dissolve. Through fractured memories, Issa relives the brutal campaign that shaped him: comrades lost in explosions, the chaotic return of the “victorious” soldiers, and the political betrayals that rewrote the country’s history in real time. At the heart of it all lies a deeper wound—his desire to be the hero Krystyna once expected, and the unbearable fear that the man who returned from war is not the one she loved, but a stranger, a double, or a ghost of the dead soldier he might have been. Structured with cinematic ambition and written in a lyrical, immersive style, The War moves between Washington, Muscat, and Dhofar, blending reality, hallucination, and memory into a portrait of a man unraveling under the weight of trauma. It is an exploration of exile, masculinity, political mythmaking, and the private battles fought long after the shooting stops. Winner of the 2023 Katara Prize for Arabic Novel, Mohammed Al-Yahyai’s work stands as one of the most powerful contemporary narratives on the psychological aftermath of conflict in the Arab world.

When a seventeen-year-old flees his violent father and heads to Cairo to chase his dream of breaking into the arts, he ends up in a crumbling flat with a mercurial landlady and her volatile son. Set in the early 1990s, The Completely True Tales of Um Mimi and Sharawi the Adulterer is a sharply observed, darkly comic coming-of-age novel about ambition, survival, and the strange intimacies forged by necessity. Longlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction, this cult-favourite debut by Egyptian screenwriter, journalist, and satirist Belal Fadl appears in English for the first time, in a vivid translation by Osama Hammad.

A storm delivers a boy to the shores of Ras Madrakah, a forgotten village where the sea speaks in riddles and the rocks seem almost alive. Sheikh Shaleh takes the boy in, convinced he is a gift from God. The same storm that wrecks a ship appears to reveal a long-buried secret. Across the sea, in the quiet chapels of Leeds, Sophia sends her husband David into the desert in search of that secret, guided by signs she believes are divine. Told with the shimmer of Arabian Nights and the wonder of Sinbad’s voyages, The Sailor’s Secret is a tale of omens, shipwrecks, and the stories that carry us home.

In The Rock of the Land, acclaimed journalist Ahmad Vall Dine delivers a riveting account of Afghanistan's relentless resistance against foreign dominations. From the Soviet invasion to the recent U.S. withdrawal, Val Dine intertwines meticulous research with personal narratives, unveiling the nation's enduring spirit amidst perpetual conflict. This compelling work not only chronicles historical events but also delves into the human stories behind the headlines, offering readers an intimate understanding of Afghanistan's geopolitical landscape and the cyclical nature of its struggles.