One of the Arab world's great stories gets a new lease of life

Naguib Mahfouz's 'The Thief and the Dogs' has been adapted into a graphic novel, in a compelling version that does justice to it and may take it to a younger audience

Tarek Emam

The Tunisia that Time Forgot

While the political elite in Tunis are wrangling over the future of the country, there are parts of Tunisia that time has simply forgotten. The current political impasse—and the fact that the state…

Tam Hussein

Poetry Leads the Turkish Republic

[caption id="attachment_55247131" align="alignnone" width="620"] Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan shows a book from the Turkish Anthropology Institutes during an address to the parliament…

Nicholas Birch

This Dance of Freedom

[caption id="attachment_55246885" align="alignnone" width="614"] Salah El Brogy performing Hurriyeh to calligraphy by Soraya Syed (both artists/ Nour Festival)[/caption] You would not expect a…

Tam Hussein

Art and Punishment

[caption id="attachment_55246819" align="alignnone" width="620"] Soudabeh ArdavanPrison Sketches©Soudabeh Ardavan[/caption] The old "suffering artist" cliché takes on a new meaning when it comes to…

Jesse Lawrence

Learning from Past Mistakes

[inset_left]The 2011 Libyan Uprisings and the Struggle for the Post-Qadhafi Future Edited by Jason Pack Palgrave Macmillan, 2013[/inset_left]Jason Pack has assembled articles by both new and well…

Noel Brehony

The Arabic Slur

[caption id="attachment_55246566" align="alignnone" width="620"] Lebanese Sheikh Hussein Zayat, a calligrapher copies out pages of the Muslim holy book, the Koran, onto sheets of paper. (MAHMOUD…

Malik al-Abdeh

The Kemalists' Veil of Tolerance

[caption id="attachment_55246534" align="alignnone" width="594"] Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party MP Nurcan Dalbudak (L) is greeted wearing a headscarf as she attends a general assembly…

Nicholas Birch

Razeq and the Caliph

[caption id="attachment_55246392" align="alignnone" width="620"] Sultan Abdul Hamid II, the 99th caliph and the last sultan to exert effective control over the Ottoman Empire.[/caption] For 1,300…

Abdullah Al-Rashid

A Tale of Five Cities

[caption id="attachment_55246443" align="alignnone" width="620"] The sun rises behind the Blue Mosque in the Sultanahmet area of Istanbul on February 22, 2012 in Istanbul, Turkey. ( Dan Kitwood/Getty…

Vedica Kant