AL-NAKIB, Mai
The Hidden Light of Objects

A young girl, renamed Amerika in honor of the US role in the liberation of Kuwait, finds her name has become a barometer of her country’s growing hostility towards the West. A self-conscious Palestinian teenager is drawn into a botched suicide bombing by two belligerent classmates. A middle-aged man dying from cancer looks back on his extramarital affairs and the abiding forgiveness of his wife.

The headlines tell of war, unrest, and religious clashes. But if you look beyond them you may see another side of life in the Middle East—adolescent love, the fragility of marriage, pain of the most quotidian kind. Mai Al-Nakib’s luminous stories carefully trace overlooked moments in the lives of those who reside in this fraught region of the world—and the power of ordinary objects to hold extraordinary memories.  [publisher's note]

Published by Saqi Books, 2025
Literature