Mona Hajjar Halaby Book Launch!
2021-07-26 17:00 - 18:30 (America/Los_Angeles)
Date: Thursday, August 26
Time: 5 – 6:30pm PT/ 8 – 9:30pm ET
Cost: FREE –register now!

Join Middle East Children’s Alliance to celebrate the release of Mona Hajjar Halaby’s new book! Mona is a long-time friend and supporter of MECA.

MONA HAJJAR HALABY is a Palestinian-American educator, writer and social history buff, residing in California, USA. She is the author of In My Mother’s Footsteps: A Palestinian Refugee Returns Home, which interweaves the story of her mother’s life and her own sabbatical year teaching conflict resolution in Ramallah. She has created a Facebook page focused on photographs of Jerusalem during the first half of the twentieth century, entitled “British Mandate Jerusalemites Photo Library,” and has also collaborated on the interactive documentary www.jerusalemwearehere.com

FREE, Register Now! www.mecaforpeace.org/MonaHalaby

Omar El Akkad with Jeff VanderMeer (Virtual)
2021-07-28 18:00 - 19:30
Novelist Omar El Akkad, now living south of here in Portland, but for many years an award-winning international journalist living and working out of Toronto, blew readers away a few years ago with his eerily prescient first novel, American War. He gave a moving reading from that at Elliott Bay. We anticipate similar engagement for readers attending this – and reading – his haunting, beautifully written new novel, What Strange Paradise (Knopf). There is an overwhelmed boat filled with refugees fleeing homelands such as Syria, Ethiopia, Lebanon, Palestine, a boat which, in time, capsizes. There is a survivor, a young boy, and his attempts to elude would-be captors, aided by a young girl living on the island he has washed ashore upon. These are the bare bones of what Omar El Akkad does with extraordinary skill, empathy, compassion.
“What Strange Paradise is by turns tender and brutal in its truths. It is tremendously written, propulsive as it is expansive as it is granular in its specificities. Omar El Akkad writes with such emotional precision, power, and grace. Here we get the wondrousness of children set in sharp relief against a backdrop of the all too common dehumanization then dismissal of refugees everywhere. The book devastates and uplifts, somehow, and we are not left with hope—that isn’t the point—but asked to witness, to see what is here, with clarity, and with fullness of heart.” —Tommy Orange.
“What Strange Paradise by Omar El Akkad just resuscitated my heart. This novel—following a boy who survives a refugee passage, and a girl whose homeland feels fractured—dares to unite us on the shore of shared human experience, and redefines hope in the face of despair. I want to read this book every single day. I want to live in a world where the beauty of strangers is a heartsong.” —Lidia Yuknavitch.
With Omar El Akkad in conversation this evening will be the wonderful writer Jeff VanDerMeer, who recently did an evening such as this for Elliott Bay readers with his own newest novel, Hummingbird Salamander. A generous supporter of other writers and many good causes, he and Omar El Akkad have some interesting shared literary ‘history’ of a good sort, which will no doubt come out this evening.

Virtual Book Launch - In My Mother's Footsteps by Mona Hajjar Halaby
2021-08-01 09:00 - 11:00
All times are based on US EDT – 12 Noon = 7:00 PM in Palestine.

Please click here to register for this event.
“Refugees are like seeds that scatter in the wind, and land in different soils that become their reluctant homes,” my mother once told me. As a small child, I looked up at my mother and clutched her hand. The puffiness of her palm reminded me of a loaf of warm pita bread, and when she laced her fingers into mine like a pretzel, I felt safe. I would have walked with her to the ends of the earth.
When Mona moved from California to Ramallah to teach conflict resolution at the Ramallah Friends School for a year, she kept a journal. Within its pages, she wrote her impressions of her homeland, a place she had only experienced through her mother’s memories.

Leïla Slimani w/ Elliott Bay Book Company
2021-08-13 11:00 - 12:00
We are thrilled to be partnering with nous amis at Alliance Française de Seattle to virtually present one of the most dynamic writers in the world today, France-based Moroccan writer Leïla Slimani. Author of (these are titles in English) Adèle, The Perfect Nanny, and Sex and Lies, books which have garnered critical acclaim in France and all over the world, she is here with her newest, published in the U.S. as In the Country of Others (Penguin). Originally published as Le Pays de Arbes (Gaillmard), which we should have copies on-hand of, along with the English translation, this book is the first of a projected trilogy, loosely tracing Leïla Slimani’s own family story.
“The world of this novel – Morocco after World War II, leading up to the revolt against French colonialism – is beautifully created. Personal life, social life, everyday life spring vividly from the page, and we feel deeply for the family caught in the middle of the conflict of history. An exceptional, powerful novel from this justly celebrated writer.” – Salman Rushdie.
“Leïla Slimani is a wonderful writer, and this gorgeous novel brings vibrantly to life the vanished world of 1950s Morocco, in a narrative at once richly layered and deceptively simple. I loved it and didn’t want it to end.” -Claire Messud.
“A powerful and compelling family saga—about women and subjugation, otherness and belonging, and the often conflicting loyalty to both family and country—written with a deftness that has come to define Leïla Slimani’s writing. It will no doubt resonate in the reader’s mind long after the final sentence is read.” – Christine Mangan.
Presented by ALLIANCE FRANÇAISE DE SEATTLE and Elliott Bay Book Company.

From Bethlehem to Gaza: Palestinian Culinary Resilience & Liberation!
2021-08-16 15:00 - 17:00
Join Middle East Children’s Alliance & Just World Educational virtually for a summer meal prepared by Vivien Sansour and Laila El-Haddad, together in Laila’s garden. In this exclusive seasonal cooking demonstration, they will discuss resilience against both the physical and culinary partitions of the occupation – as well as its attempts to destroy diversity of food. In this moment of new imagining for Palestine, how can we create a plate that threads us together?
Sign up for this special webinar by making a donation below! Suggested donation of $10 per person.
Your tax-deductible gift will support MECA’s programs in Gaza.

Yassin Adnan and Alex Elinson with Laila Lalami
2021-08-18 16:00 - 18:00
Moroccan author Yassin Adnan, translator Alexander Elinson, and longtime Elliott Bay friend and noted, award-winning author Laila Lalami are all set to virtually be on hand for this program centered around the U.S. publication of Yassin Adnan’s spirited novel, Hot Maroc (Syracuse University Press).
“Finally, the vibrant work of Yassin Adnan is available in English. Alexander Elinson’s playful translation of Hot Maroc brings us into the heart of today’s Marrakech, an ancient city weathering the rapid changes brought by modernization, globalization, and, most importantly in this book, the Internet. At once a commemoration of the past and an insightful look at our influence on the present, Hot Maroc expands our ideas of a country that has been woefully underrepresented in English-language literature, while taking us on a wild ride through an anonymous online world that holds the power to reveal our true selves.”—Emma Ramadan.
“A witness to his age like any true writer, Yassin Adnan paints a complex and forceful portrait of a Morocco where so often, reality exceeds fiction. Fluidly and beautifully written, this novel is a superb addition to a youthful new wave of Moroccan creative work.”—Tahar Ben Jelloun.
If we have people properly ‘situated’ for this evening which the zoom era makes possible, author Yassin Adnan will be joining us from Marrakech (where he has long been an esteemed prose writer, poet, and journalist), Alexander Elinson from New York (where he is head of the Arabic program at Hunter College, CUNY, and has written his own books and translated works by Youssef Fadel), and Laila Lalami, serving as interlocutor and guide here, joining us from southern California, teaching there at the University of California, Riverside, and writing several acclaimed novels, with her most recent book being a timely book of essays, Conditional Citizens.
This should be a delight on several counts.

Virtual Book Event - Conversation with Randa Abdel-Fattah about her book "Where the Streets Had a Name"
2021-08-29 09:00 - 10:30
Please click here to register for this event.

All times are based on US EDT – 12 Noon, 7:00 PM in Palestine.
Join us for a conversation with Palestinian-Egyptian-Australian author Randa Abdel-Fattah about her book “Where the Streets Had a Name.” She will also read selected passages from the book.

Virtual Book Launch - "A Taste of Gaza," A Cookbook by Lima Shawa
2021-09-12 09:00 - 10:30
Please click here to register for this event.
All times are based on US EDT – 12 Noon = 7:00 PM in Palestine.
The book is Available for Pre-Order here from Palestine Museum US Bookshop

Join us for a conversation with Palestinian Gazan author, Lima Shaw, talking about her newly published book. Lima will do a live cooking demonstration of the famous Gaza dish “Fatteh Ghazawyeh فته غزاوية.”
Food and Traditions from Home
Lima Shawa celebrates Gazan traditions and cuisine in her new book – A Taste of Gaza.

“Before starting to write about food and traditions of Gaza, my home, I had a mixture of feelings: happiness, nostalgia, and laughter; yet also deep sadness. As I began, memories flooded back: events, family, neighbors, friends, and the wonderful smell of home.“
The book opens with the celebrations, feasts and different seasons in Gaza. Lima Shawa shares Palestinian traditions and recipes full of fragrance, flavors and richness from her beloved Gaza.
*Shortlisted for the Palestine Book Awards 2021
Lima Shawa was born in Gaza and now lives in Amman. She has three children.

Virtual: Building for Hope with Marwa al-Sabouni
2021-09-25 10:00 - 12:00
We can’t begin to say how delighted, how grateful, how honored we are to finally be able to present a program with author, thinker, architect, Marwa al-Sabouni. If all goes well (In sh’Allah), she will be joining us at this special hour, virtually and ‘live’ from her home in Homs, Syria to discuss her extraordinary new book, Building for Hope: Towards an Architecture of Belonging (Thames & Hudson). Building for Hope comes five years after Marwa al-Sabouni’s first book, The Battle for Home: The Vision of a Young Architect in Syria, introduced the larger world to a writer uniquely adept at using words to convey ideas from books, book-study, life being fully lived (and wars survived) and from the physical spaces of buildings, streets, land-use patterns that do so much to shape how we live as individuals and as communities and countries.

“Ambitious… Building for Hope is expansive, abstract, and at times extraordinarily idealistic… Al-Sabouni argues that architecture is a necessary agent for any kind of peace, any possibility of belonging in our modern, extremely polarized world… It’s especially enlightening to read about Western cities through the lens of an architect specialized in Islamic traditions… Building for Hope is dense and daring. Readers will finish with a list of people and places to investigate, as well as with a firm belief that a better future lies in valuing community over ostentation, coherence and decency over luxury, truly livable cities over places designed purely for profit.” – World-Architects.com.
“A gifted writer and illustrator, al-Sabouni’s visionary ideas will inspire architects, designers and urban planners across the world.” – Shahina Piyarali , Shelf Awareness.
Yes, the illustrations, that language, too. This is one not to be missed.
Saturday, September 25, 2021 – 10:00am

P&P Live! Rabih Alameddie —The Wrong End of the Telescope - in conversation with Aminatta Forna
2021-09-26 14:00 - 16:00
Sunday, September 26, 2021 – 5 p.m.

This event will stream online as a part of P&P Live! Series
Mina Simpson, a Lebanese doctor, arrives at the infamous Moria refugee camp on Lesbos, Greece, after being urgently summoned for help by her friend who runs an NGO there. Alienated from her family except for her beloved brother, Mina has avoided being so close to her homeland for decades. But with a week off work and apart from her wife of thirty years, Mina hopes to accomplish something meaningful, among the abundance of Western volunteers who pose for selfies with beached dinghies and the camp’s children. Soon, a boat crosses bringing Sumaiya, a fiercely resolute Syrian matriarch with terminal liver cancer. Determined to protect her children and husband at all costs, Sumaiya refuses to alert her family to her diagnosis. Bonded together by Sumaiya’s secret, a deep connection sparks between the two women, and as Mina prepares a course of treatment with the limited resources on hand, she confronts the circumstances of the migrants’ displacement, as well as her own constraints in helping them.
Not since the inimitable Aaliya of An Unnecessary Woman has Rabih Alameddine conjured such a winsome heroine to lead us to one of the most wrenching conflicts of our time. Cunningly weaving in stories of other refugees into Mina’s singular own,The Wrong End of the Telescope is a bedazzling tapestry of both tragic and amusing portraits of indomitable spirits facing a humanitarian crisis.
Rabih Alameddine is the author of the novels The Angel of History; An Unnecessary Woman; The Hakawati; I, the Divine; Koolaids; and the story collection, The Perv. In 2019, he won the Dos Passos Prize.
Alameddine will be in conversation with Aminatta Forna, the author of the novels Ancestor Stones, The Memory of Love, The Hired Man, and Happiness, as well as the essay collection The Window Seat and memoir The Devil That Danced on the Water. Forna’s books have been translated into twenty two languages. Her essays have appeared in Brick, Freeman’s, Granta, The Guardian, Kenyon Review, Literary Hub, The New York Review of Books Daily, The Observer, and Vogue. She is currently Director and Lannan Foundation Chair of Poetics at Lannan Center for Poetics and Social Practice at Georgetown University.
Click Here to register for this event.
Sunday, September 26, 2021 – 5 p.m ( I believe this is Eastern Standard Time, please double check when you register)

P&P Live! Elizabeth F. Thompson — How the West Stole Democracy from the Arabs: The Arab Congress of 1920, the Destruction of the Syrian State, and the Rise of Anti-Liberal Islamism
2021-09-27 15:00 - 17:00
Monday, September 27, 2021 – 6 p.m (I believe this is Eastern Standard Time, please double check when you register for this event!)

CLICK HERE to register for this virtual event!
How the West Stole Democracy from the Arabs: The Arab Congress of 1920, the Destruction of the Syrian State, and the Rise of Anti-Liberal Islamism is the story of a pivotal moment in modern world history, when Arabs established a representative democracy–and how the West crushed it.
Elizabeth F. Thompson is a leading historian of the modern Middle East and Mohamed S. Farsi Chair of Islamic Peace at American University’s School of International Service. She is the author of two previous books, Colonial Citizens: Republican Rights, Paternal Privilege and Gender in French Syria and Lebanon, winner of two national book prizes, and Justice Interrupted: The Struggle for Constitutional Government in the Middle East.

P&P Live! Washington DC 20008

Ben Hodgson & Laura Moulton in Conversation With Omar El Akkad
2021-10-05 17:00 - 19:00
Tuesday, October 5 @ 5pm (PT)
In 2011, Laura Moulton founded Street Books, a mobile library serving people living outside in Portland, Oregon. That summer, Ben Hodgson became one of her most dedicated regulars, setting the still-unbroken single season record for borrowing. Then Ben’s routines changed, and he didn’t cross paths again with Laura for almost two years. Loaners: The Making of a Street Library (Perfect Day) is the story they began to tell when they reconnected, offering a street-level perspective of a community whose stories are seldom told, alternating between their two unforgettable points of view in this addictively readable, occasionally sublime memoir. Hodgson and Moulton will be joined in conversation by Omar El Akkad, author of What Strange Paradise and American War.
Register for the Zoom event / Buy the Book

Laila Lalami: Kepler's Literary Foundation
2021-10-14 18:00 - 19:00
THIS IS AN ONLINE EVENT. Please consider joining with a book to support programs like this one.
Pulitzer Prize Finalist Laila Lalami—author of the acclaimed novels The Moor’s Account and The Other Americans—opens up with a deeply personal and powerfully researched book about the experience of “conditional citizens” living in the United States.
What does it mean to be American? In this starkly illuminating and passionate detail, Laila Lalami recounts her unlikely journey from Moroccan immigrant to U.S. citizen, using it as a starting point for her exploration of the rights, liberties, and protections that are traditionally associated with American citizenship. Through a tour of history, politics, culture and literature, in a book that Viet Thanh Nguyen calls “a gift to all Americans,” Lalami clarifies a vision of the United States where accidents of birth are codified in a hierarchy that disenfranchises and limits some based on skin color and origin. Conditional citizens, Lalami argues, are all the people whom America embraces with one arm, and pushes away with the other.
Online with Kepler’s on October 14 for the paperback release of Conditional Citizens, one of our most compelling literary voices takes a hard look at a broken social fabric which limits the welcoming promise of our famously multicultural nation. In a period of continued international turmoil around borders, a very real refugee crisis and embattled citizenship, be prepared to join the conversation: don’t miss Laila Lalami.
“Consistently thoughtful and incisive, the book confronts the perils of our modern age with truths to inspire the coalition-building necessary to American cultural and democratic survival. A bracingly provocative collection perfect for our times.”—Kirkus Reviews

Candid Conversations with Susan Abulhawa
2021-10-21 12:00 - 13:30
Thursday, October 21, 2021
8:00 PM 9:00 PM (BST) – 12:00 PM 1:00PM (PST)
Google Calendar ICS

Nahr has been confined to the Cube: nine square metres of glossy grey cinderblock, devoid of time, its patterns of light and dark nothing to do with day and night. Journalists visit her, but get nowhere; because Nahr is not going to share her story with them. The world outside calls Nahr a terrorist, and a whore; some might call her a revolutionary, or a hero. But the truth is, Nahr has always been many things, and had many names. She was a girl who learned, early and painfully, that when you are a second class citizen love is a kind of desperation; she learned, above all else, to survive.

Virtual Event: Margaret Owen with Hafsah Faizal — Little Thieves
2021-10-21 19:00 - 20:30
Third Place Books welcomes Margaret Owen, the beloved author of The Merciful Crow and The Faithless Hawk, for the launch of her highly anticipated standalone YA novel: Little Thieves. She will joined in conversation by Hafsah Faizal, the New York Times bestselling author of We Hunt the Flame.

IN MEDIAS RES: A CELEBRATION OF THE ODYSSEY PROJECT'S STUDENT JOURNAL
2021-11-03 17:00 - 18:30
Join us virtually on Wednesday, November 3, 2021 at 7:00 p.m (Chicago Time). for the launch of the 2021 In Medias Res, a journal of The Odyssey Project
Illinois Humanities is thrilled to celebrate the launch of the latest issue of In Medias Res, a journal of creative written and visual work by Odyssey Project students and alumni.
Contributors will read from their published work alongside celebrated Chicago author, Sahar Mustafah, whose recent novel The Beauty of Your Face (Norton, 2020) was listed as one of the New York Times Most Notable Books of 2020.

University Book Store Presents: Laila Lalami in conversation with Dr. Anu Taranath
2021-11-03 18:00 - 19:00
Conditional Citizens: On Belonging In America (Pantheon Books)
November 03, 2021, 6:00 PM (Pacific Time) Virtual
Free

University Book Store is proud to present author and Pulitzer Prize-finalist Laila Lalami for a discussion about her new book Conditional Citizens. Laila will be joined in conversation with Dr. Anu Taranath, Teaching Professor in the English and Comparative History of Ideas (CHID) departments at the University of Washington.
This is a free Zoom event but registration, through the link provided, is required to receive a Zoom code to join the Webinar. If you have any questions, please email events@ubookstore.com. See you there!
ABOUT THE BOOK
A New York Times Editors’ Choice • Finalist for the California Book Award • Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction • Best Book of the Year: Time, NPR, Bookpage, Los Angeles Times
In this brilliantly argued and deeply personal work, Pulitzer Prize finalist Laila Lalami recounts her unlikely journey from Moroccan immigrant to U.S.citizen, using her own story as a starting point for an exploration of the rights, liberties, and protections that are traditionally associated with American citizenship. Tapping into history, politics, and literature, she elucidates how accidents of birth—such as national origin, race, and gender—that once determined the boundaries of Americanness still cast their shadows today, poignantly illustrating how white supremacy survives through adaptation and legislation. Weaving together her experiences with an examination of the place of nonwhites in the broader American culture, Lalami illuminates how conditional citizens are all those whom America embraces with one arm and pushes away with the other.

Laila Lalami was born in Rabat and educated in Morocco, Great Britain, and the United States. She is the author of four novels, including The Moor’s Account, which won the American Book Award, the Arab American Book Award, and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Her most recent work, The Other Americans, was a finalist for the National Book Award. Her essays have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Nation, Harper’s Magazine, The Guardian, and The New York Times. Lalami is a professor of creative writing at the University of California, Riverside. She lives in Los Angeles. www.lailalalami.com

Rabih Alameddine with Michael David Lukas and R.O. Kwon
2021-11-08 18:00 - 20:00
One of our favorite, and one of our most necessary literary writers at work today, Rabih Alameddine, makes this welcome Elliott Bay return in virtual form to read from and discuss his brilliant new novel, The Wrong End of the Telescope (Grove Press). Here the National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle Award finalist for An Unnecessary Woman, as well The Hakawati, I, the Divine, and others, again tells the story of a singular woman.

2021 Arab American Book Awards: A Ceremony of Live Readings
2021-11-13 14:00 - 16:00
Join the 2021 Arab American Book Award winners and honorable mentions, featuring awardees Susan Abulhawa, Sarah M.A. Gualtieri, Helen Zughaib, George Abraham, Noor Naga, Aya Khalil, Anait Semirdzhyan, Susan Muaddi Darraj, Dima Alzayat and Sirène Harb for a celebratory live reading, hosted by artist-in-residence Fargo Tbakhi!

In Conversation: On Conditional Citizens: On Belonging in America
2021-11-16 09:00 - 10:00
Livestreamed

In Conditional Citizens: On Belonging in America, Laila Lalami recounts her unlikely journey from Moroccan immigrant to U.S. citizen, using it as a starting point for her exploration of American rights, liberties, and the place of nonwhites in the broader American culture. Moderated by author Marie Arana.

If you are interested in this event, please double check time!

Jordan Salama with Michael Shapiro (Virtual)
2021-12-01 18:00 - 20:00 | Elliott Bay Book Company, 1521 10th Avenue, Seattle, 98122, United States
A journalist and TV producer who works in both English and Spanish, Jordan Salama’s debut, Every Day the River Changes: Four Weeks Down the Magdalena (Catapult), received such awards as the Ricardo Piglia Award and Stanley J. Stein Prize for Best Senior Thesis at Princeton University (yes, he’s young – this started as a senior thesis) on the way to becoming a book.
“Jordan Salama writes with an attentiveness, and a sense of adventure, that many of us might envy; this engaging, intrepid debut promises many more wonders to come. Already he’s shown himself to be a writer with a rare (and inspiring) commitment to giving us the world.” —Pico Iyer.
“The book is more than a notable achievement in travel literature and more than a clarifying window into a misunderstood culture; it is a book of conscience and open-heartedness . . . It is a privilege to savor, if vicariously, this harvest of a promising writer’s vivid journeys.” —Kirkus Reviews.
“This is a born journalist.”—John McPhee.
Joining Jordan Salama in virtual conversation will be rafting guide, interview journalist (Spark), and author Michael Shapiro. His recent book is The Creative Spark: How Musicians, Writers, Explorers, and Other Artists Found Their Inner Fire and Followed Their Dreams.
Co-presented by ORION & Elliott Bay Book Company.
REGISTRATION/INFORMATION

Syrian/Iraqi

Reading & Conversation hosted by University of Michigan-Dearborn
2021-12-06 16:00 - 17:00
Join Sahar Mustafah as she reads from and discusses her novel. Register here for this free virtual event.

(Please double check the time.)

Virtual Book Event "The Other End of the Sea" by Alison Glick
2022-01-09 09:00 - 10:30
Please click here to register for this event.
Click here to order the book from Palestine Museum US Bookshop
Join us for a conversation with author Alison Glick talking about and reading from her newly published book, The Other End of the Sea.

Online Class (series of 3): Literature of Rafik Schami With Heba F. El-Shazli
2022-01-24 10:00 - 12:00
This is a three series class starting on January 24.
Join me on this tumultuous, passionate, and heart rendering voyage back to Syria for this most interesting Syrian-German author.
Through three novels we will travel to Syria and read about a passionate love story of a Muslim woman and a Christian man and learn about the art of Arabic calligraphy. We will journey to Damascus in 1959 and read about the most famous storyteller and in the final novel to read and discuss in this series of classes, Sophia or the Beginning of All Tales, Schami ventures to the land of his childhood, where he is now unable to safely return.
Three bi-weekly Mondays: January 24, February 7 and 21, from 1 to 3 p.m. EST Online
CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS

Nadifa Mohamed with Cynthia Bond
2022-01-25 18:00 - 19:30
Even though it is virtual, we are delighted to finally be able to present a reading/talk program with Nadifa Mohamed, a writer we’ve read and followed through her first novels, Black Mamba Boy and The Orchard of Lost Souls. Born in Hargeisa, Somaliland and then raised and educated in London, she has received the Betty Trask and Somerset Maugham Awards, and in 2013 was named one of Granta’s Best Young British Novelists – a distinction which got her to Seattle as part of a group tour. She is virtually with us tonight for her compelling, Man Booker shortlist nominated novel, The Fortune Men (Knopf). Based on a true story, the narrative centers on the unjust conviction (overturned years later) and execution of an innocent Somali immigrant, Mahmood Mattan in Cardiff, Wales in 1952. There is more to this book than that.
“Equally informative and moving . . . The immediate allure of the novel is the vibrancy of Mohamed’s prose, her ability to capture the complicated culture of Cardiff and the sound of tortured optimism. . . . The horrific finale of The Fortune Men is never in doubt, but for more than 200 pages Mohamed still creates a sharp sense of suspense by pulling us right into Mahmood’s world as his life tilts and then crashes. . . . There’s a natural grandeur to her portrayal of this ordinary man caught in the city’s gears. Readers will hear echoes of Dostoevsky and Kafka in her re-creation of this nightmare. . . . With The Fortune Men, Mohamed has given us a clear vision of so many victims caught in the maw of racist legal systems.”—Ron Charles, The Washington Post.
“Nadifa Mohamed’s The Fortune Men is a blues song cut straight from the heart. It tells about the unjust death of an innocent Black man caught up in a corrupt system. Nadifa’s masterful evocation of the full life of Mahmood Mattan, the last man executed in Cardiff for a crime he was exonerated for forty years later, is brought alive with subtle artistry and heartbreaking humanity. In one man’s life Mohamed captures the multitudes of homelands, dialects, hopes, and prayers of Somalis, Jews, Maltese and West Indians drawn in by the ships that filled Wales’ Tiger Bay in the 1950’s, all hoping for a future that eludes Mattan.”—Walter Mosley.

Virtual Event: Maggie P Chang, Mika Song, Dan Abdo, and Jason Patterson present graphica for early readers
2022-01-26 18:00 - 19:30
This is a virtual event taking place via Zoom Webinar.
Third Place Books welcomes Maggie P Chang, Mika Song, Dan Abdo, and Jason Patterson for a fun-filled, action-packed presentation on their graphic novels for early readers!
This event will be broadcast live on Zoom. Registering will provide you with a unique access link in an email. During the event, you can ask questions using the Q&A feature, or chat with fellow attendees. A recording of the event will be made available and emailed to all who register.
This author talk is free! You can sustain our author series by purchasing a copy of the featured book.

Jonathan Smolin & Alaa Al Aswany: Virtual Event Elliott Bay Bookstore
2022-01-26 18:00 - 19:30
Ihsan Abdel Kouddous (1919-1990) was an iconic, hugely important writer in Egypt and beyond, during his lifetime and beyond. The author of numerous major novels, his work has been too little known in English and to readers here. Thanks to translator Jonathan Smolin, professor of Asian Studies at Dartmouth and translator from the Arabic of other such writers as Abdelilah Hamdouchi and Youssef Fadel, his work is now more readily available, this in the form of I Do Not Sleep (American University of Cairo Press), a sixty-year-old novel which shocked readers when it first appeared in the 1950s. Betrayal, desire, and family drama are all part of this, the narrative being in the form of a letter written by a central protagonist.
“What sets Ihsan Abdel Kouddous apart is his ability to combine, on the page, the different overlapping threads of politics and society.”―Al-Shorouk.
“The novel I Do Not Sleep represents a turning point in Ihsan Abdel Kouddous’s narratorial style.”―Hafriyat.
Slated to be with Jonathan Smolin to discuss I Do Not Sleep is Alaa Al Aswany, one of the most acclaimed writers – Egyptian and otherwise – working today. His novels include The Yacoubian Building, Chicago, and, most recently, The Automobile Club of Egypt. T​​he recipient of numerous international literary awards, he has had his books translated into over thirty languages.

Misna: The Experimental Issue Virtual Launch
2022-01-30 09:00 - 17:00
Event details

On Sunday, January 30, join Mizna in launching The Experimental Issue with TWENTY ONE AUTHORS.
Featured readers include Mays Albaik, Tamara Al-Qaisi-Coleman, Darius Atefat-Peckman, Hajjar Baban, Doris Bittar, Ahimsa Timoteo Bodhrán, Mohammed El-Kurd, Tracy Fuad, Farah Kader, Magdeline Maher, Khashayar Mohammadi, Yasmine Rukia, hana roz, Trish Salah, Glenn Shaheen, Nadia Shihab, Fargo Tbakhi, Mohamed Tonsy, Sarah Sophia Yanni, Omar Zahzah + Issam Zineh.
This event takes place virtually at 11 am CT, RSVP required.
RSVP HERE

ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Tamara Al-Qaisi-Coleman (she/her) is a bi-racial Muslim writer, historian, poet, and artist. Her first book of poetry “The Raven, The Bayou, & The Willow ” is forthcoming through FlowerSong Press Spring 2022. She is a Brooklyn Poets Fellow (2020), a Rad(ical) Poetry Fellow (2020), and a poet for the Houston Grand Opera & MFAH’s event “The Art of Intimacy.” (2019) She was nominated this year for a Pushcart Prize and the Best of the Net anthology. Her work can be found in (Art) WORDPEACE and Mixed Magazine, (Fiction) Crack the Spine Literary Magazine, (Poetry) Boundless 2021: The Anthology of the Rio Grande River Valley International Poetry Festival, and others.
Hajjar Baban is a Pakistan-born Afghan Kurdish Poet. A 2021 PD Soros Fellow and current MFA in Poetry candidate at the University of Virginia, she has poems appearing in BAHR Magazine and the Southeast Review. You can read her work here: hajjarbaban.com
Doris Bittar is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice spans painting, photography, installation, video, sound and performance. Bittar participated with Gulf Labor in the Venice Biennale in 2015 and other international and national exhibits. She won the Alexandria, Egypt Biennial 2nd prize and various awards, grants and recognitions in the United States and abroad.
Ahimsa Timoteo Bodhrán is author of Archipiélagos; Antes y después del Bronx: Lenapehoking; and South Bronx Breathing Lessons. A Tulsa Artist Fellow and National Endowment for the Arts Fellow, he is editor of Yellow Medicine Review’s international queer Indigenous issue; and co-editor of Movement Research Performance Journal’s Native dance/movement/performance issue.
Tracy Fuad is the author of about:blank, chosen by Claudia Rankine as the 2020 winner of the AWP Donald Hall Prize and published in 2021 by the University of Pittsburgh Press. She is a graduate of the Rutgers-Newark MFA Program and a 2021-22 Poetry Fellow at the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, and teaches poetry at the Berlin Writers’ Workshop.
Farah Kader is a New York-based public health analyst. She was a recipient of the 2017 Palestinian Youth Movement’s Ghassan Kanafani Writing Prize and a 2019 Hopwood Graduate Award for poetry. Kader’s work has been published in Mizna, Orion Magazine, Electric Literature, and Narrative Magazine.
Khashayar Mohammadi (He/They) is a queer, Iranian born, Toronto-based Poet, Writer and Translator. They are the winner of the Vallum Poetry Prize 2021 and author of four poetry Chapbooks. Their debut poetry collection “Me, You, Then Snow” is out with Gordon Hill Press.
Yasmine Rukia is a first generation Lebanese-American Shia experimental poet. Her work exploring the nexus between hyphens, breaths and beliefs can be found in the Black Warrior Review, Mizna, Cliterature, The Gordon Square Review, The Belt, Jaffat el-aqlam and others. She lives in Dearborn Michigan with her two sons.
Glenn Shaheen is the author of four books. He is the Executive Director of the Radius of Arab American Writers and teaches at Prairie View A&M University.
Fargo Tbakhi is a queer Palestinian performance artist, a Taurus, and a cool breeze. Find more at fargotbakhi.com.
Mohamed Tonsy is a queer Egyptian writer, ceramicist and a PhD graduate of Edinburgh University. His writing has recently appeared in Epoch Press’s ‘Transitions’ issue, e.i.i.i zine’s ‘Navel’ issue, is set to appear in Mizna’s unthemed Summer 2022 issue, and has been shortlisted for MFest’s 2021 Short Story Competition. His debut novel — You Must Believe in Spring — is set to be published by Hajar Press, late 2022.
Sarah Sophia Yanni is a Mexican-Egyptian writer, editor, and educator. She is the author of the chapbook ternura / tenderness (Bottlecap Press, 2019) and was a Finalist for BOMB Magazine’s 2020 Poetry Contest, Poetry Online’s 2021 Launch Prize, and the Hayden’s Ferry Review Inaugural Poetry Contest. She currently serves as Managing Editor of Tiding House and holds a Faculty Fellowship at CalArts.
Omar Zahzah is a writer, poet, independent scholar, and organizer of Lebanese-Palestinian descent whose creative, critical, political, academic, and journalistic writings have appeared in or are forthcoming from various publications including Narrative magazine, Mizna, FIYAH, Electronic Intifada, Middle East Eye, Arab Studies Quarterly, Full Stop, and the New York Times. Several of Omar’s poems were featured in the anthology, Beside the City of Angels: An Anthology of Long Beach Poetry. In 2016, Omar’s chapbook 13 Almost Love Poems was released, and Omar’s chapbook, DEATH, is forthcoming from swallow::tale press. Omar is the Education and Advocacy Coordinator for Eyewitness Palestine as well as a member of the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) and the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI.) Omar holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from UCLA.
Issam Zineh is a Palestinian-American poet and scientist. He is author of the poetry collection Unceded Land (forthcoming summer 2022, Trio House Press) and the chapbook The Moment of Greatest Alienation (Ethel, 2021). His poems appear or are forthcoming in AGNI, Pleiades, Gulf Coast, Guernica, and elsewhere. Find him at issamzineh.com or on Twitter @izineh.

Powell's Books Presents Simon Jacobs in Conversation With Mona Awad (Zoom)
2022-02-01 17:00 - 19:00
Eerie, hypnotic, and shot through with dark comedy, Simon Jacobs’s String Follow (MCD x FSG) is a razor-sharp suburban Gothic that cuts deep, exposing the sweating, bleeding truth of how kids become adults in 21st-century America. In spellbinding, incisive prose, Jacobs blends the startlingly original and the uncannily familiar, revealing the dark chaos that lurks under the surface of Midwestern suburbia.

Jacobs will be joined in conversation by Mona Awad, author of All’s Well, Bunny, and 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl.

Time

Virtual Event: Olga Tokarczuk and Jennifer Croft with Rabih Alameddine — The Books of Jacob
2022-02-19 10:00 - 13:00
Third Place Books is proud to partner with Community Bookstore and the Transnational Literature Series at Brookline Booksmith to welcome Nobel Prize–winner Olga Tokarczuk and her translator Jennifer Croft for a discussion of their latest book, The Books of Jacob—the astonishing, 900-page volume from Poland’s most well-regarded novelist. Tokarczuk and Croft will be joined by Rabih Alameddine, National Book Award finalist and the author, most recently, of The Wrong End of the Telescope.
This event will be broadcast live on Brookline Booksmith’s Zoom platform. Registering will provide you with a unique access link in an email within 48 hours of the event. During the event, you can ask questions using the Q&A feature, or chat with fellow attendees. A recording of the event will be made available and emailed to all who register.
This author talk is free! You can sustain our author series by purchasing a copy of the featured book. Order a book-bundled ticket at the link below to received a signed bookplate by the author. Supply is limited.
