The Book of Sana'a

About

A man accidentally swept along by a street protest finds himself tasered, arrested and subjected to days of torture by the police, simply because he tried to cross the road...

Following the disappearance of her father, a teenage girl is forced to support her impoverished family by disguising herself as a boy, losing both her childhood and her identity in the process...

On the day after a perfect wedding, a groom can’t work out why all his relatives are gathered outside his bedroom dressed in mourning clothes...

The stories in this anthology demonstrate the myriad ways that war and oppressive regimes have touched the lives of ordinary Yemenis. Whether it’s the decade-long war between the Ansarallah (a.k.a. ‘Houthi’) movement and the Yemeni government (played out as a proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia), or the oppression of President Saleh’s previous regime, or earlier civil conflicts... No one is safe. Each character learns to navigate through trauma, finding redemption in their own ingenuity as well as in a deep-rooted appreciation for what remains a beautiful, inspiring city.

Translated by: Maisa Almanasreh, Raph Cormack, Basma Ghalayini, Mohammed Ghalayini, Christiaan James, Laura Kasinof, Talei Lakeland, Andrew Leber, Majd Abu Shawish, and Katherine Van de Vate.