Arabs

October 1, 2009

Fatima’s Fig Tree

One of the last things I did before leaving Jordan this week was to go into the backyard of my family’s home to see if another fig was ready for the picking. It’s also the first thing I’d done when I arrived there, upon my mother’s insistence. We’re a family that gets pretty excited about Continue reading

Arabs, Arts and Culture, Author, Books, Food, Jordan, Lebanon, Middle East

fig trees, figs, Jordan, The Night Counter
September 25, 2009

Jordan’s National Dish: Mansaf

It’s Friday in Jordan. Family get together day. Mansaf day. The first time I went to Jordan, my uncle took me to Jabri. “This is the only decent restaurant in town,” he said. “Order the mansaf.” I did and found myself faced with an almost intimidating amount of rice generously topped with lamb shanks simmered Continue reading

Arabs, Arts and Culture, Author, Books, Food, Jordan, Middle East, recipes
September 6, 2009

The Boston Globe Review

http://www.boston.com/ae/books/articles/2009/08/09/in_dunants_sacred_hearts_a_story_of_thwarted_love_and_church_intrigue/ “In Alia Yunis’s poignant, hilarious first novel, “The Night Counter,’’ purple-haired, 85-year-old Fatimah Abdulla tells her life story to Scheherazade, the legendary storyteller from “The Arabian Nights,’’ who appears every night in the elderly woman’s Los Angeles bedroom. Fatimah has plenty of stories. She came to Detroit from Lebanon as a teenage bride, had Continue reading

Arabs, Arts and Culture, Author, Books, Publishing

Author, book reviews, Books, Boston Globe, The Night Counter
August 28, 2009

RAMADAN IN DETROIT

Here in Abu Dhabi Ramadan is essentially a national event, a month of family celebration as well as religious significance, with virtually every Emirati fasting. In THE NIGHT COUNTER, Fatima doesn’t talk about Ramadan but she is someone who fasts the whole month. Fatima spent most of her life in Detroit, which is the largest Continue reading

Abu Dhabi, Arabs, Arts and Culture, Food, Middle East, recipes

Author, Detroit, Ramadan
August 20, 2009

Mathematics and Olive Oil

In The Night Counter, Fatima is fixated on numbers and it is something that runs through the family for five generations. She thinks about math when’s she’s cooking, too, as any woman who raised 14 kids probably would—how much to make for each one, how much it was costing, and so forth. And how many Continue reading

Arabs, Author, Food, Lebanon, Middle East, Palestine

Author, math, Olive oil, The Night Counter
July 6, 2009

Israeli authorities threaten demolition of 500 church buildings

Add this to the daily demolition of generations old homes, the bulldozing of olive trees and other land cultivated for centuries, the siphoning off of water–not to mention the human rights abuses–and people still wonder why Palestinian hearts break every day. Israeli authorities threaten demolition of 500 church buildings Date: 28 June 2009 Israeli authorities Continue reading

Arabs, Middle East, Palestine

Christians, Jerusalem, Palestine
July 3, 2009

THE NIGHT COUNTER UPDATES: GERMANY, THE KINDLE AND MORE

As I get used to being back in L.A.—in some ways I’ve been gone more than a year and in other ways I forget that I haven’t been here for almost a year– I’d just thought I’d take a moment to do an update on what’s going on with The Night Counter, some of which Continue reading

Arabs, Arts and Culture, Author, Books, Middle East, Travel

Author, Germany, Kindle, The Night Counter
June 12, 2009

NOT ALL ARAB COUNTRIES HAVE CAMEL CROSSINGS

Not all Arab countries are created equal—most of them have oil as a big part of their identity, but for some it’s the oil that runs cars and for others it’s the stuff the comes from olives. A couple of them, like Algeria, have both. Sometimes the contrast between Arab countries is minimal, such as Continue reading

Abu Dhabi, Arabs, Author, Books, Dubai, Jordan, Middle East
June 4, 2009

Making Movies in Abu Dhabi

This spring my students have won several awards for their films—-national awards, not international, but we haven’t tried that yet. It’s my first year teaching them, and it’s the first year they make short narrative films and documentaries that are not tour guides to the UAE. The results, good and bad, have been a surprise Continue reading

Abu Dhabi, Arabs, Arts and Culture, Film, Middle East
May 30, 2009

The Best View Of The Ski Slope In Dubai is at…

Dubai has now become the international destination for indoor wonders, but the Atlantis, Palm Jumeriah, the Burj Dubai (tallest building in the world), the seven star Burj Al-Arab, and all the other more recent developments don’t seem to come as close to the excitement that people seem to have at seeing modern Dubai’s first wonder, Continue reading

Arabs, Arts and Culture, Dubai, Food, Lebanon, Middle East

About Alia

Alia Yunis is a writer, journalist and filmmaker. She is currently producing and directing “The Golden Harvest,” a feature length documentary about how olive oil has shaped the Mediterranean culture, cuisine and history for 6,000 years, through war and peace. Her debut novel, The Night Counter (Random House) has been critically acclaimed by the Washington Post, Entertainment Weekly, and several other publications. It was also chosen as a top summer read by the Chicago Tribune and Boston Phoenix. The Boston Globe has called it “wonderfully imaginative…poignant, hilarious.” Alia was born in Chicago and grew up in the U.S., Greece, and the Middle East. She has worked as a filmmaker and journalist in several cities, especially Los Angeles. Her fiction has appeared in several anthologies, including The Robert Olen Butler Best Short Stories collection, and her non-fiction work includes articles for The Los Angeles Times, Saveur, SportsTravel Magazine, and Aramco World. She currently teaches film at Zayed University in Abu Dhabi.