Middle East

April 21, 2010

Busted on Possession of Zaatar

I just watched a news story from Australia in which a Lebanese Australian called the confiscation of his mother-in-law’s zaatar by Sydney airport customs officials “a tragedy” and “a disaster” and when he still couldn’t convince the officials to release the vacuum packed zaatar, he told them he wanted to speak to a member of Continue reading

Arabs, Arts and Culture, Food, Jordan, Lebanon, Middle East, Palestine

Arabs, Middle East, zaatar
March 27, 2010

THE OTHER WINNERS OF THE ZAYED UNIVERSITY FILM FESTIVAL

With several local celebrities on hand as well as, due to remarkably good timing, the brilliant American writer and actor Anna Deveare Smith, trophies were handed out yesterday to student filmmakers from Lebanon, Jordan, and Qatar, in the closing ceremony marking the end of the first annual Zayed University Film Festival. Twelve films from the Continue reading

Abu Dhabi, Arabs, Arts and Culture, Film, Middle East

Middle East, Student Film Festival
March 20, 2010

RED CARPET ADVENTURE: THE STUDENT OSCARS OF THE MIDDLE EAST

Much as I love film and much as it has been such a big part of my life, I don’t often watch the Academy Awards, even when I’m invited to Oscar parties at friends’ houses. Aside from crying along with the winners on the Miss USA pageant as a kid, I’m just not that interested Continue reading

Abu Dhabi, Arabs, Arts and Culture, Film, Middle East

film festival, Middle East, student films
January 7, 2010

NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS FOR THE MIDDLE EAST

I’m opposed to making lofty new year’s resolutions–aside from the token and easily forgettable “I’ll try to eat less chocolate”—as they sometime trivializes a dream. But I’m happy to make resolutions for others, kind of like the UN. Here are my new year’s resolutions for the Middle East, and I know they’re laced with loftiness Continue reading

Abu Dhabi, Arabs, Dubai, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Middle East, Palestine

Middle East, New Year’s Resolutions
November 16, 2009

DISNEYLANDIFICATION AND THE HIJAB

In order to get to my reading in Cairo, my two colleagues and I had to negotiate with a stoned cab driver, whose body for most of the harrowing ride was half out the taxi chatting with a man stuck on the bus next to us, and a donkey who refused to budge off the Continue reading

Abu Dhabi, Arabs, Arts and Culture, Author, Egypt, Middle East

Cairo, Egypt, hijab, Middle East
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 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

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.