The Book of Sana'a

About

When a groom wakes up the morning after his wedding, he can't work out why the relatives visiting him are all in mourning...

In a government department riddled with corruption, a man concocts a new scientific discipline just to secure a job...

In a world where people swap heads as a form of entertainment, a man is shocked to discover the new head he’s been given is actually his own...

The stories in this anthology demonstrate how Sana'a, Yemen’s capital city, is continually adapting and responding to new layers of pressure being put on it. With the ever-present civil war raging in the background and the constraints of religious conservatism growing tighter, they depict characters navigating their own way through trauma, finding redemption in their own ingenuity - from hallucinatory delusions, to supernatural consultations, to the upturning of gender roles. At the heart of each story is a deep-rooted appreciation for this beautiful, beleaguered city, a heart-felt connection with it that remains universally relatable.
    For over a decade, Yemen has found itself the battleground of a war being fought both locally and regionally - not juist a war between the Zaydis (often referred to in the West as ‘Houthis’) and state-sponsored Salafis, but also a proxy war, being fought internationally between Iran and Saudi Arabia (backed by the US), respectively. Caught in the middle of this have been ordinary Yemeni citizens, whose precarious living standards, poverty and exposure to violence has been widely ignored by the international community. Thes stories give a glimpse into this life, and a sense of the real battles being fought in the region.