Category Archives: General

The Emptiest Quarter book trailer

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The Emptiest Quarter now available

The beginning of “Tent,” the first novella:
To the foreigner, the wind in the dunes outside Liwa conveys nothing on its back. To the foreigner, the edge of the Rub al Khali is so dead the air transmits no sound and one’s voice carries no farther than inside the empty quarter of one’s own skull. But for us, these million square miles of emptiness we call the Sands, or al Rimal, are not empty. Here, our fathers worshipped The One God who created the expansive sand and sky and sea to remind us of our insignificance; from whom The Prophet, peace be upon him, received blessing and grace and His Holy Word, and to whom are turned the face and breath of those who have lived and will live here. The sand is dense with their stories; their memories reverberate in the wind, echo in the waves. This is what we hear.
The wind blew my people here many years ago. In search of water, they smelled moisture in the air and followed the scent to Liwa. The village rose around wells of water and groves of date palms on the edge of al Rimal. The settlers were from old, once-upon-a-time tribes. The clans stood shoulder to shoulder with one another, like siblings: sometimes given to quarrel, sometimes to defence of the blood. They peopled the desert in the summer and the coast in the winter. Their names are legend. They were the Manasir and the Al Bu Mahair. The Rumaithat, the Qubaisat, the Mazari and Sudan. And although the stitching of their rugs was different one from the other, though some spoke with an accent as flat as the roof of their arysh homes, they shared the common element of their faith; every one of them Maliki Sunnis. They were not Wahhabi Sunnis. These people were from the west, from the lands of the Saud, and their fighting with the Bani Yas in the 1800s and 1900s, when my grandfather and father lived, led to the creation of the frontier between Saudi Arabia and what would become this country. Continue reading

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As a child I couldn’t trust the adults entrusted to guide me

An AV version of the essay I wrote for the Star about the child sexual abuse I suffered as a boy.

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Fine old images of Abu Dhabi

The time, like fine desert sand, just slips away. But the images don’t. They stay with you forever. Even these old ones. The National newspaper that I worked for has done a wonderful job collating photographs from the U.A.E. going … Continue reading

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The Emptiest Quarter

The unseasonably, beautiful weather we’ve had last month (and even so far into October) has got me thinking of Septembers in Abu Dhabi, where I lived for almost four years. The perception is that the sun beats without interruption and … Continue reading

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These Days Are Nights is now available

In 2002, a violent student protest at Concordia University in Montreal prevented Benjamin Netanyahu – בנימין נתניהו, now the prime minister of Israel, from delivering a speech. The events of that day inspired this novel, These Days Are Nights, which is … Continue reading

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History …

Long ago Denise and I ran a reading series in Montreal that sought to bring together friends in the literary communities of the city, English, French, and allophone. It seems, this weekend, heading into yet another provincial election that hinges … Continue reading

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Audio from Blue Metropolis

Here’s a link to the audio of the CBC-sponsored panel called “Montreal’s X Factor” in which I participated, pimping Everything I Own at the Blue Metropolis literary festival in April.

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MLA conference

Have been invited to present at the 2013 AGM of the Modern Languages Association, to be held in Boston, Jan. 3-6. More details to follow, including title of panel and fellow presenters.

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Book signing event

I’ll be signing copies of Everything I Own on February 12, a Sunday, at Chapters Pointe-Claire, from 1 to 3 p.m. Call ahead to reserve a copy: (514) 428-5500. This is in addition to a previously announced reading and signing at … Continue reading

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