The Night Counter
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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
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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
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Doner Kabob and Schweinefleisch
At the baggage carousel at the Stuttgart airport, the first stop of the book tour for Feigen in Detroit (Aufbau 2010), I waited for my suitcase while four Gulf women dressed like they had arrived at a spa at the North Pole waited for their 10 gargantuan suitcases. From eavesdropping, I gathered the baggage was Continue reading
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Feigen in Detroit: The Night Counter in Germany
Many people ask me why “The Night Counter” is called “Feigen in Detroit” in German, which means “Figs in Detroit.” Therein lies the beauty of translation. It’s all about what your translators (Max Stadler and Nadine Puschel) and publisher (AufBau) see in German that you didn’t see in English. I have loved working with AufBau Continue reading
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Muslims Wearing Things
I miss living in the US every day for many reasons, but among the things I don’t miss are the shallow debates on TV that pretty much follow the line of “Muslims: Terrifying or just really scary?”–usually a heated debate book ended with some heart pounding intro and outro musak– like these are one of Continue reading
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THE PAPERBACK RELEASE OF THE NIGHT COUNTER THIS WEEK
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Emily Lavelle (212) 572-8756 elavelle@randomhouse.com PRAISE FOR THE NIGHT COUNTER: “[Yunis] weaves a colorful tapestry…rich in character and spirit.” —Entertainment Weekly “Wonderfully imaginative…poignant, hilarious…The branches of this family tree support four generations of achievement, assimilation, disappointment, and dysfunction.…Their stories form an affectionate, amusing, intensely human portrait of Continue reading
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THE NIGHT COUNTER’S MIDDLE EAST TOUR BEGINS
Six weeks after finishing the initial U.S. tour, The Night Counter and I are going to do a little tour of the Middle East. Started out easy last night at the American Women’s Network in Abu Dhabi, where, thanks to my friend Annette, many of the women had already read it and were fans. Next Continue reading
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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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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
Alia Yunis 