Secret identities, criminal conspiracies, and forbidden love converge in this “whimsical and at times heartbreaking look” at the Muslim communities of Rome (The New York Times). The Italian secret service believes that a group of Muslim immigrants is planning a terrorist attack. Christian Mazzari, a young Sicilian translator who speaks perfect Arabic, goes undercover in Rome’s Egyptian neighborhood, Viale Marconi, to infiltrate the group. Posing as a recently arrived Tunisian in search of a job and a place to sleep, Christian soon meets Sofia, a young Egyptian immigrant whose arranged marriage is anything but fulfilling. While Christian attempts in vain to uncover terrorist activity, Sofia is on another kind of secret mission—in defiance of a husband who forbids her to work. In alternating voices, Algerian-born Italian author Amara Lakhous examines the commonplaces and stereotypes of life in modern, multicultural Italy. Divorce Islamic Style mixes the rational and the absurd as it depicts the conflicts and contradictions of today's globalized world.

It's 2005. The Italian secret service has received intel that a group of Muslim immigrants based in Rome's Viale Marconi neighborhood is planning a terrorist attack. Christian Mazzari, a young Sicilian court translator who speaks perfect Arabic, goes undercover to infiltrate the group and learn who its leaders are. Christian poses as Issa, a recently arrived Tunisian in search of looking for a place to sleep and a job. He soon meets Sofia, a young Egyptian immigrant whose life with her husband, Said a.k.a. Felice, an architect who has reinvented himself as a pizza cook, is anything but fulfilling. In alternating voices, with an anthropologist's keen eye and sparkling wit Lakhous examines the commonplaces and stereotypes typical of life in multicultural societies. Divorce Islamic Style mixes the rational and the absurd as it describes the conflicts and contradictions of today's world. Marvelous set pieces, episodes rich in pathos, brilliant dialogue, and mordant folk proverbs combine as the novel moves towards an unforgettable and surprising finale that will have readers turning back to the first page of Lakhous's stunning novel to begin the ride all over again.

The immigrant tenants of a building in Rome offer skewed accounts of a murder in this prize-winning satire by the Algerian-born Italian author (Publishers Weekly). Piazza Vittorio is home to a polyglot community of immigrants who have come to Rome from all over the world. But when a tenant is murdered in the building’s elevator, the delicate balance is thrown into disarray. As each of the victim’s neighbors is questioned by the police, readers are offered an all-access pass into the most colorful neighborhood in contemporary Rome. With language as colorful as the neighborhood it describes, each character takes his or her turn “giving evidence.” Their various stories reveal much about the drama of racial identity and the anxieties of a life spent on society’s margins, but also bring to life the hilarious imbroglios of this melting pot Italian culture. “Their frequently wild testimony teases out intriguing psychological and social insight alongside a playful whodunit plot.” —Publishers Weekly

From the author of Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio The Italian secret service has received intel that a group of Muslim immigrants based in Rome's Viale Marconi neighborhood is planning a terrorist attack. Christian Mazzari, a young Sicilian court translator who speaks perfect Arabic, goes undercover to infiltrate the group and learn who its leaders are. Christian poses as Issa, a recently arrived Tunisian in search of a place to sleep and a job. He soon meets Sofia, a young Egyptian immigrant whose life with her husband, Said a.k.a Felice, an architect who has reinvented himself as a pizza cook, is anything but fulfilling. In alternating voices, with an anthropologist's keen eye and with sparkling wit Lakhous examines the commonplaces and stereotypes typical of life in multicultural societies. Divorce Islamic Style mixes the rational and the absurd as it describes the conflicts and the contradictions of today's world. Marvelous set pieces, episodes rich in pathos, brilliant dialogue, and mordant folk proverbs combine as the novel moves towards an unforgettable and surprising finale that will have readers turning back to the first page of Lakhous's stunning novel to begin the ride all over again.

A remarkable research accomplishment. Ali leads us through three strands of early Islamic jurisprudence with careful attention to the nuances and details of the arguments.

“[A] masterly investigation of evil, resistance and guilt, billed as the first Arab novel to confront the Holocaust” from the Nobel Prize–nominated author (Publishers Weekly). Banned in the author’s native Algeria, this groundbreaking novel is based on a true story and inspired by the work of Primo Levi. The Schiller brothers, Rachel and Malrich, couldn’t be more dissimilar. They were born in a small village in Algeria to a German father and an Algerian mother and raised by an elderly uncle in one of the toughest ghettos in France. But the similarities end there. Rachel is a model immigrant—hard working, upstanding, law-abiding. Malrich has drifted. Increasingly alienated and angry, a bleak future seems inevitable for him. But when Islamic fundamentalists murder the young men’s parents in Algeria the destinies of both brothers are transformed. Rachel discovers the shocking truth about his family and buckles under the weight of the sins of his father, a former SS officer. Now Malrich, the outcast, will have to face that same awful truth alone. “The German Mujahid deals with the fine line between the destructive power wielded by Islamic fundamentalism today and the power of another movement that left an indelible mark on history: Nazism.” —Haaretz (Israel) “With extraordinary eloquence, Sansal condemns both the [Algerian] military and the Islamic fundamentalists; he decries that Algeria crippled by trafficking, religion, bureaucracy, the culture of illegality, of coups, and of clans, career apologists, the glorification of tyrants, the love of flashy materialism, and the passion for rants.” —Lire (France) “The German Mujahid, winner of the RTL-Lire Prize for fiction, is a marvelous, devilishly well-constructed novel.” —L’Express (France)

"This book examines feminist divorce reformers, their relationship with the broader feminist movement, and their lasting effects on the American social welfare regime. It shows how the two distinctive qualities of the American welfare state-its gendered nature and its public/private nature-combined to encourage the breadwinner-homemaker model of marriage's use as policy tool. The linking of access to economic benefits to marriage, begun early in the development of the American social insurance system, shaped political identity and activism in the 1970s and has continued to do so into our current political moment. The result has not only affected policy questions directly relating to marriage but also limited the possibilities for expanding America's social welfare provisions. As a gateway to full economic citizenship, marriage has always served as an institution that protects and perpetuates class privilege"--