a grave in gaza
October 14, 2009
- You know the reputation. "Swiss" isn't a nationality. It's really an adjective meaning highly organized and perhaps even a little too punctilious. That's a myth. The place is just like the Middle East... (Look, I write fiction, but I may be onto something. Read on.)On my recent reading tour, I stopped in Basel as a guest of the superb Literaturhaus Basel. Everyone told me to go the ...
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August 9, 2009
- When my second novel A GRAVE IN GAZA was being translated into German, I received an email from my translator. He had a number of penetrating questions about certain phrases I'd used in the book. He also happened to be the only translator who asked me a question about any of my books (and my work is translated in 22 languages so far.) Perhaps it’s not for nothing that Germany is the country ...
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August 9, 2009
- When my second novel A GRAVE IN GAZA was being translated into German, I received an email from my translator. He had a number of penetrating questions about certain phrases I'd used in the book. He also happened to be the only translator who asked me a question about any of my books (and my work is translated in 22 languages so far.) Perhaps it’s not for nothing that Germany is the country ...
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August 9, 2009
- The first rock concert I ever attended was a performance by Canada's greatest rockers Rush. I've loved Canadians ever since. In the London (Ontario) Free Press recently, Joan Barfoot gave me another reason to adore them. She gives a terrific review to the second of my Palestinian crime novels A GRAVE IN GAZA (UK title The Saladin Murders). Of my sleuth, she writes: "Omar Yussef is a ...
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July 22, 2009
- Robert Rees (no relation) writes about my books in this week's edition of The Forward. Admirably Rob read all three of the books before passing judgment, and a good review it is (as well as an interview, because we spoke for some time on Rob's recent visit to Jerusalem). "Rees has created an award-winning crime series which provides a view of Palestinian society, warts and all, not ...
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July 12, 2009
- The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs has a forthcoming review praising my series of Palestinian crime novels "rich not only in character but in intellectual complexity." I blush to report that WRMEA Managing editor Janet McMahon and Don Neff, a famed predecessor of mine as Jerusalem bureau chief for Time Magazine, say I'm "a wonderfully subtle writer with a deep ...
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July 4, 2009
- The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs is organizing donations of books to libraries and schools in the Gaza Strip. I'm delighted to learn that my Palestinian crime novels are included on the list, which I should add includes works by many of my favorite Arab and Muslim writers (I'm a big fan of Tariq Ali's series of novels about Muslim history, in particular The Shadow of the Pomegranate ...
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June 24, 2009
- My second Palestinian crime novel A Grave in Gaza (UK title: The Saladin Murders) is just now published in Holland. The Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant asked me to contribute a list of my five favorite books, or at least those which've had the biggest impact on me as a writer. Here's what I wrote:Let It Come Down – Paul BowlesWriters look for resonance. You might say Bowles has us with his title ...
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June 23, 2009
- The video blog Watch the Video features the clip I made for the second of my Palestinian crime novels A Grave in Gaza (UK title: The Saladin Murders). The rest of my videos feature on my Youtube channel. Many writers make promotional videos for their books these days, as you'll see from the Watch the Video site. Most of them are made up largely of still photos and have quite a lot in common with ...
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June 18, 2009
- Much as I love Nordic crime fiction, the Europewide megaseller “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” by Stieg Larsson made me want to throw knives like the Swedish chef on The Muppet Show. Why?Two reasons.First, the minor reason. Written by a (tragically deceased) Swedish journalist, the book is entirely in the style of a magazine article. Complete with page after page of “research.” It’d ...
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