Author
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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
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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
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The Sacremento Book Review & The Night Counter
http://sacramentobookreview.com/modern_literature/the-night-counter/ The Night Counter Posted by Editor at 8 September, 2009, 9:25 am By Alia Yunis Shaye Areheart Books, $23.00, 365 pages When the immortal storyteller Scheherazade gives Fatima Abdullah 1,001 nights to tell the great stories of her life, Fatima begins to prepare for her death. Between getting her affairs in order, Fatima spends Continue reading
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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
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One Hundred Years Twenty Years Later
During my tour of The Night Counter, I was often asked either “What writers have influenced you the most?’ or “Who are you favorite writers?” I have no answer for the first because to say Gabriel Garcia Marquez influenced me is to say that I’ve made some conscious choice to use his style or tone Continue reading
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The Night Counter On True Talk in Tampa On Aug. 21
Here is the link to Samar Jarrah’s interview with me on NPR Tampa’s True Talk: http://www.wmnf.org/programs/256 Continue reading
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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
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PENN, CHEESESTEAKS, AND BROTHERLY LOVE
A week ago I was in Philadelphia reading at the Penn Bookstore, my first East Coast stop. I was pretty uncomfortable about Philadelphia, as it was a city I had no base in, so I accepted the offers of two friends to come down from New Jersey and New York for the event, bringing along Continue reading
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The Minneapolis Star Tribune and Other Reasons I Love Minnesota
The Minneapolis Star Tribune wrote a great review of The Night Counter in its Sunday edition: http://www.startribune.com/entertainment/books/52617702.html (Link also posted under The Night Counter Press & Reviews here) But that is not the only reason I was excited to do a reading for Mizna (www.mizna.org) in Minneapolis on Saturday. Minnesota has been a part of Continue reading
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The Night Counter A Best Bet in Dayton/The Mother Daughter Book Club in Santa Barbara
http://daytonmetrolibrary.blogspot.com/2009/08/night-counter.html The Wright Brothers didn’t write so much as fly, but pretty cool for the book to get such a nice mention in their hometown. Meanwhile, I loved reading at Chaucer’s (www.chaucersbooks.com) in Santa Barbara last night amidst Fiesta Night traffic, and one of the great moments for me was when a woman in attendance Continue reading
Alia Yunis 