Author

May 22, 2024

You Can’t Google the Future

Five years ago, I gave the commencement talk at Brighton College in Al AIn in the UAE, and I talked about not being able to Google the future. Those students have or will graduate from university this year. And what a future none of us could have imagined: Their university years were framed by a Continue reading

Abu Dhabi, AI, Arts and Culture, Author, Books, COVID, Graduation, Heritage, Pandemic

Abu Dhabi, AI, artificial-intelligence, chatgpt, COVID, Gaza, Google, Graduation, Graduation Ceremony, Palestine, Pandemic, technology, The Night Counter
January 27, 2024

A Land and a Camera

The world is made of stories, and most journalists will discover in their career more stories than they can ever tell, even if they never leave where they were born. We are tragically seeing that today with the young journalists in Gaza. Unlike them, I have had the opportunity to travel much further in pursuit Continue reading

Arab Americans, Arabs, Arts and Culture, Author, Film, Food, Islam/Muslim, Middle East, Saudi Arabia

aramco-world, Aseer, bo-kaap, cape-town, cheese, dugongs, filmmaking, honduras, Jordan, journalism, madaba, majlis-painters, mosques, Tromsø, Writer, Writing
April 4, 2019

GETTING HERITAGE IN WRITING: This Month’s Aramco World Cover Story

These are just some thoughts of mine after my third visit to Cape Town, this time to write this month’s cover story for Aramco World Magazine https://www.aramcoworld.com/en-US/Articles/March-2019/The-Handwritten-Heritage-of-South-Africa-s-Kitabs The first time I saw the Western Cape, I thought “This looks just like Los Angeles,” and then I thought, “This looks just like Lebanon.” I’m not just Continue reading

Arab Americans, Arts and Culture, Author, Heritage, Islam/Muslim, Publishing, Slavery, South Africa, Uncategorized, Western Cap, Writing

Authors, Heritage, Islam, museums, Quran, Slavery, South Africa, Travel, Western Cape, Women, Writing
February 28, 2019

The Schedule for Thessaloniki International Film Festival

We are delighted that The Golden Harvest will make its international debut at the Thessaloniki International Film Festival . Please join us if you can! For more information, visit: https://www.filmfestival.gr/en/movie/movie/11920 TONIA MARKETAKI 04 March 2019 15:30 JOHN CASSAVETES 05 March 2019 12:45 Continue reading

Arab Americans, Arts and Culture, Author, Film, Food, Greece, Italy, Jordan, Lebanon, Middle East, Olive Oil, olive trees, Palestine, Spain, The Golden Harvest, Writing

Culture, Film, film festival, Food, Olive oil, Olive Tree, Oman, Television, Thessaloniki Internatnional Film Festival, Writing
February 25, 2019

The Golden Harvest to Premiere at Thessaloniki International Film Festival

Every filmmaker making a film on her own dreams of it opening at a Top 10 ranked festival. We are delighted thus that The Golden Harvest will make its debut on March 4 at the Thessaloniki International Film Festival in Greece. Not only is it a great festival–it’s in the country with the highest per Continue reading

Arts and Culture, Author, Film, Food, Greece, Italy, Jordan, Lebanon, Middle East, Minnesota, Olive Oil, olive trees, Palestine, Spain, Syria, Uncategorized

Culture, Director, Film, film festival, Food, Producer, Television, Thessaloniki Internatnional Film Festival
August 23, 2014

The Blog Tour: My Writing Process

In which I join other writers in talking about the fun and tortuous process. Continue reading

Arts and Culture, Author, Books, Film, Publishing, Writing
May 7, 2012

Gained in Translation (and how I lost the ‘dude’)

Interesting. I wonder what this is about? That was my initial reaction when I opened a package from my publisher the other day and saw Przepowiednia Szeherezady. I was thinking that another writer must be as equally obsessed with Scheherazade as I am. Perhaps she had read The Night Counter, and had liked it so Continue reading

Arts and Culture, Author, Books, Middle East, NIght Counter Reviews and Press, Publishing

Poland, The Night Counter, Translation, Writing
October 6, 2011

Thank you, Steve Jobs, for Letting Me Write

Since I was in college, the one thing that has been in my life nearly everyday—and for better or worse, nearly all day—has been my Apple. Along with one of those apples that grow on trees, turning on my Mac has been part of my morning ritual wherever I have been and in whatever state-of-mind Continue reading

Author, Books, Film, Publishing, Teaching, Travel

Author, Steve Jobs, Writer, Writing
September 10, 2011

The Only Muslim I Agree With

The only Muslim I agree with 100% (well, more like 90% of the time) is me. Sometimes I question by dusk religious thoughts that at dawn seemed prophetic. But mostly I agree with myself about God, Mohammed, Jesus, the five pillars of Islam–and yes, the Muslim cliché the hijab, and all other things attributed to Continue reading

Arts and Culture, Author, Islam/Muslim, Middle East

9/11, hijab, Islam, Muslims in America, Pew Forum, religious beliefs
June 3, 2011

War and Body Image: Guernica and Arab American Literature

When my friend and author Randa Jarrar asked me for a short story for a collection she was editing for Guernica, I wrote “Girls on Ice.” Those were the people talking in my head at the time. Some form of them is always talking in my head because they are in part who I once Continue reading

Arabs, Arts and Culture, Author, Books, Islam/Muslim, Middle East, Publishing

alienation, Arab Americans, Guernica, literature, short stories

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.