Genet in Palestine
Inspired by the plight of the Palestinian people and shocked by the massacres carried out at the Sabra and Shatila Palestinian refugee camps during the 1982 Israeli invasion of Beirut, Jean Genet began work on his final book Un Captif Amoureux. It was the coming together of his art, politics and humanity, writes Ahdaf Soueif

Enduring Mesopotamia
La Société irakienne, communautés, pouvoirs et violences (Iraqi Society: Communities, Authority and Violence), Hosham Dawod and Hamit Bozarslan, eds., Paris: Karthala , 2003. pp166

A gallery of Iraqi characters
Duna Talib, Al-Nuqta Al-Ab'ad (The Furthest Point), Damascus: Dar Al-Mada, 2000. pp215; Harb Nameh (The Book of War), Damascus: Dar Al-Mada, 1998. pp204

Demonising the Wahhabi kingdom
The Two Faces Of Islam: The House of Sa'ud from Tradition to Terror, Stephen Schwartz, New York: Doubleday, 2002. pp336; Hatred's Kingdom: How Saudi Arabia Supports the New Global Terrorism, Dore Gold, Washington, DC: Regnery, 2003. pp309

Collecting the footnotes
Palestine and Egypt under the Ottomans, Hisham Khatib, Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2003. pp272

Confronting the Arab malaise
Al-Arab fi Muwagahat Al-Udwan (The Arabs Confronting Aggression), Tarek El-Bishri, Cairo: Dar Al-Shorouk, 2002. pp120

At a glance
A shorthand guide to recent publications compiled by Mahmoud El-Wardani