Alia Yunis

July 9, 2009

HOW TO TEACH AN FBI AGENT TO MAKE HUMMOS

In THE NIGHT COUNTER, Fatima is baffled by the FBI agent that visits her at home and claims to have a Middle Eastern background but doesn’t know how to make hummos. A couple of years ago I wrote an article for Saveur about hummos and my own mother’s bafflement at its Americanization of hummos, i.e. Continue reading

Food, recipes

Food
July 8, 2009

Attending Michael Jackson’s Memorial Service

Today several people stopped me on the street to ask me how Michael Jackson’s memorial service was. It took me a while to catch on that they weren’t all psychic. I was wearing the gold wrist band that everyone in LA knows means you had a ticket to the event. I did indeed, thanks to Continue reading

Arts and Culture

Michael Jackson, Music
July 7, 2009

Review of the Night Counter From Genre Reviews

Saturday, June 27, 2009 The Night Counter-Alia Yunis The Night Counter Alia Yunis Shaye Areheart (Crown), Jul 14 2009, $24.00 ISBN: 9780307453624 Lebanese immigrant Fatima Abdullah is dying, but shows no interest in a reconciliation with her estranged husband Ibraham or for that matter with her children sprawled all over the country as she prefers Continue reading

Uncategorized

Author, book reviews, Books
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 28, 2009

LIVING IN THE SOUND OF MUSIC:What Does A Small Alpine Village Have In Common With Abu Dhabi?

I’m in Obervellach in southern Austria, population 1,500, where the hills are alive with The Sound of Music—the movie that is. Everywhere you turn, you’re waiting for Julie Andrews to come twirling down the mountain or the Von Tramp children to pop out of the bright flower boxes on the Alpine homes and break into Continue reading

Abu Dhabi, Arts and Culture, Middle East, Travel

Abu Dhabi, Alps, Author, Middle East, Travel
June 25, 2009

AN OCCASSIONAL BOOK REVIEW: THE ELEGANCE OF THE HEDGEHOG

THE ELEGANCE OF THE HEDGEHOG by Muriel Barbery According to 12-year old Paloma, Renee Michel, her building’s middle-aged concierge, is like the hedgehog: “a deceptively indolent little creature, fiercely solitary –and terribly elegant.” Paloma and Renee are the protagonists of this little hedgehog of a book, with its simple tale of an autodidactic concierge and Continue reading

Arts and Culture, Books, Publishing

Books, reviews
June 19, 2009

A Recipe From the Night Counter: Foul Medamos

In The Night Counter, Laila goes to the Arabic grocery in Detroit and decides for the first time in her marriage not to buy the ingredients to make her Egyptian husband foul. Whether you write it out from Arabic as “foul” or “fool,” I’ll grant you that it doesn’t sound very appetizing in English. But Continue reading

Arts and Culture, Author, Books, Food, Middle East, recipes

Middle East, recipes
June 16, 2009

The Night Counter: A Starred Review in Kirkus

The Night Counter received a starred reveiw in Kirkus Reviews this week. It leaves a tired writer so joyful she is wordless. A link to the original can be found at: http://www.aliayunis.com/press.html (It also inspired Chris Costello, the person who designed this website, and I to update the Events page on the website.) But if Continue reading

Arts and Culture, Author, Books, Middle East, Publishing

Arab Americans, Author, Books, Middle East
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

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.