Read an excerpt from Against the Tide by Rasul Bayram

Rasul Bayram's book Against the Tide, translated by yours truly, has been doing respectable business on Amazon. You can now read a four-page excerpt on Rasul's official site.

Against the Tide by Rasul Bayram, translated by Polina Skibinskaya

Xlibris Book Publishing Company has published Against the Tide by Rasul Bayram, translated from Russian by yours truly. The book follows two dynasties - a Lebanese Muslim family and a family of European Jews - through the creation of Israel after World War II and the escalating tensions in the Middle East. The story of two families, whose paths cross through several generations, is a crash course in proxy wars, identity politics, religious nationalism, and the transnational human toll of the Middle East conflict.
When it comes to politics, Rasul and I don't always see eye to eye. But while I don't share his respect for Reagan , I can't help but relate to the relationship at the heart of the book. The story of the two families trapped on the opposite sides of the conflict asks the simple, but necessary question: when superpowers collide, who pays the price?

Royal Shakespeare Company's HAMLET

I've been CRAVING the Royal Shakespeare Company's Hamlet... We've watched it 3 times now, and I can't wait to see it again. I've seen tons of Hamlet productions which I loved - but with this one, I actually RELATE, truly and fully. This Hamlet is not mopy, a gentle soul done wrong - he's a sarcastic, vicious, spoiled brat fully aware of his superiority. His story is not the story of weakness as much as it's a story of strength thwarted. And the bastard is FUNNY!

So if this, of all the countless stage and screen productions I've seen, is the one I relate to the most, what does it say about me?

I can't recommend this version highly enough. If you've never quite bought the hype around the play (like Kiran, who always found it pompous and boring, and is now completely and utterly in love with it), this production will convince you. And if you've loved Hamlet all along (like my mom, a theater connoisseur who was highly skeptical before seeing this version, only to call me at 4am after watching it, choking on her tears), it will convince you that there's always something new to be found, even in a play as over-performed as this.

Kiran Mehdee's short story The Wellness Room published in The Broken City Magazine

The Broken City Magazine has published a short story called The Wellness Room written by my partner Kiran Mehdee. This funny and life-affirming story is easily one of the best pieces Kiran has written (so far). Here's a taste:

My aloneness was a warm blanket I could hide in, burrowing like a wild ferret. The room, called the "Wellness Room," was the only reason I even managed to survive the job for the fourteen months I was there. Sparsely furnished with a plain table, a chair, a small trash can, and a fake plastic tree in the corner, it was an inner room surrounded by offices full of cubicles full of diligent wage slaves like me.

But not quite like me.

Read the rest of the story in the Winter 2008 edition of The Broken City Magazine. And watch this space - and Kiran's own blog - for more beautiful prose and poetry!