The Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Texas at Austin has published over 80 books since 1976 across five scholarly book series focusing on the Middle East. The publications are chosen through a rigorous review process and cover topics like emerging voices in Middle Eastern literature, Israel studies, contemporary Middle Eastern studies, and Middle Eastern literature in translation. The books reach worldwide audiences and are used widely in classrooms.

1. Since its inauguration in 1976, the publications
program at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies
at the University of Texas at Austin has published
eighty books in its five series. These scholarly works
and literary translations on subjects concerning the
Middle East have reached audiences worldwide and
are invaluable in the classroom.
All works are chosen under a rigorous review
process conducted by the Center’s publications
committee and are marketed and distributed by the
University of Texas Press.
C M E S P U B L I C A T I O N S S E R I E S
E M E R G I N G V O I C E S F R O M T H E M I D D L E E A S T
The Middle East is witnessing an unprecedented literary
revolution, with new voices ushering in new articulations of
identity, social methods, and literary genres. By focusing on
authors who began publishing in the twenty-first century,
this series introduces readers to writers who are at the
cutting edge of Middle Eastern culture.
B I N A H Y I T Z R I T F O U N D A T I O N S E R I E S
I N I S R A E L S T U D I E S
This series features books on Israel studies and translations
of contemporary Israeli literature.
M O D E R N M I D D L E E A S T S E R I E S
This series focuses on scholarly works of high merit
devoted to contemporary developments in the Middle East
and North Africa.Twenty-six books by Western and Middle
Eastern social scientists have been published and widely
reviewed over the last thirty-five years. The Center acquires
manuscripts for this series, which is published under the
imprint of the University of Texas Press.
M O D E R N M I D D L E E A S T L I T E R A T U R E S
I N T R A N S L A T I O N S E R I E S
This series is devoted to the publication of English
translations of literary works by established Middle Eastern
writers.The Modern Middle East Literatures in Translation
Series includes more than forty translations from Arabic,
Hebrew, Persian, and Turkish.
M I D D L E E A S T M O N O G R A P H S E R I E S
The thirteen books in this series are short works of a
specialized nature geared toward social and literary studies.
W H A T M A K E S A M A N ?
S e x Ta l k i n B e i r u t a n d B e r l i n
By Rashid al-Daif and Joachim Helfer
Translated by Ken Seigneurie and Gary Schmidt
This “novelized biography” by Lebanese novelist Rashid
al-Daif and pointed riposte by German novelist Joachim
Helfer demonstrate how attitudes toward sex and
masculinity across cultural contexts are intertwined with
the work of fiction, thereby highlighting the importance of
fantasy in understanding the Other.
$30.00
PAPERBACK
5.5 x 8.5 | 263 pp.
ISBN: 978-0-292-76310-4
Available January 2015
W H O ’ S A F R A I D O F M E R Y L S T R E E P ?
By Rashid al-Daif
Translated by Paula Haydar and Nadine Sinno
This novel by one of Lebanon’s best-known authors offers
an intimate look at evolving attitudes toward virginity,
premarital sex, and abortion in Lebanon as it draws a
compelling portrait of a disintegrating marriage.
$19.95
PAPERBACK
5.5 x 8.5 | 130 pp.
ISBN: 978-0-292-76307-4
Ebook available on Amazon.com | $9.95
S E X T A L K
I N B E I R U T
A N D B E R L I N
R A S H I D
A L - D A I F
J O A C H I M
H E L F E R
TRANSLATED BY
KEN SEIGNEURIE
& GARY SCHMIDT
What Makes a Man?What Makes a Man?
Who's
afr aid
of meryl
str eep?
RASHID AL-DAIF
TRANSLATED BY
PAULA HAYDAR AND NADINE SINNO
PUBLICATIONS
THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN
MIDDLE EASTERN STUDIES

2. TO PURCHASE THESE
AND OTHER TITLES IN OUR SERIES
PLEASE VISIT:
UTPRESS.UTEXAS.EDU
For more information on our
scholarly and literary publications, contact:
Wendy Moore, Acquisitions Editor
wendymoore@austin.utexas.edu
(512) 471-3196
Center for Middle Eastern Studies
The University ofTexas at Austin
204W 21st St. F9400
Austin,TX 78712-0527
Department Office:
Calhoun 528
M O O N A N D H E N N A T R E E
By Ahmed Toufiq
Translated by Roger Allen
Morocco’s Minister of Religious Affairs and Endowments
explores the abuse of power and its effects in this award-
winning novel that opens a fascinating window into Amazigh
(Berber) culture.
$24.95
PAPERBACK
5.5 x 8.5 | 284 pp.
ISBN: 978-0-292-74824-8
&&
nnMMoooo
rrTT eeeennnnHHee aa
A H M E D T O U F I Q
T r a n s l a t e d b y R o g e r A l l e n
F O R G O D A N D C O U N T R Y ?
R e l i g i o u s S t u d e n t - S o l d i e r s
i n t h e I s ra e l D e f e n s e F o r c e s
By Elisheva Rosman-Stollman
Challenging conventional assumptions about religious
believers, this study reveals how religious student-soldiers
negotiate the sometimes conflicting goals and norms of
their Orthodox Jewish faith and the Israel Defense Forces
in which they serve.
$55.00
HARDCOVER
6 x 9 | 320 pp.
ISBN: 978-0-292-75851-3
N E W W A W
S a h a ra n O a s i s
By Ibrahim al-Koni
Translated by William M. Hutchins
By the award-winning author of The Puppet, this novel
weaves myth and contemporary life into a tale of a desert
community whose nomadic way of life is irrevocably changed
by an unpredictable turn of events.
$21.95
PAPERBACK
5.5 x 8.5 | 166 pp.
ISBN: 978-0-292-75475-1
MIDDLE EASTERN STUDIES | FICTION
IBRAHIMAL-KONI,who was born in 1948,is an award-winning
Arabic-language novelist and has already published more than
seventy volumes. ATuareg whose mother tongue isTamasheq,
he was educated in Moscow and now lives in Spain. He is one
of the prime authorities on Tuareg culture and folklore.
WILLIAM M. HUTCHINS, Professor in the Philosophy and
Religion Department at Appalachian State University, has
translated numerous works of Arabic literature into English,
including four novels by the Nobel Prize laureate Naguib
Mahfouz. He has received two grants from the National
Endowment for the Arts for literary translation, both for
works by Ibrahim al-Koni. His most recent NEA award was
for this novel.
Upon the death of their leader, a group of Tuareg, a nomadic Berber community whose
traditional homeland is the Sahara Desert, turns to the heir dictated by tribal custom;
however, he is a poet reluctant to don the mantle of leadership. Forced by tribal elders to
abandon not only his poetry but his love,who is also a poet,he reluctantly serves as leader.
Whether by human design or the meddling of the SpiritWorld, his death inspires his tribe
to settle down permanently, abandoning not only nomadism but also the inherited laws of
the tribe.The community they found,NewWaw,which they name for the mythical paradise
of the Tuareg people, is also the setting of Ibrahim al-Koni’s companion novel, The Puppet.
For al-Koni,thisTuareg tale of the tension between nomadism and settled life represents a
choice faced by people everywhere, in many walks of life, as a result of globalism. He sees
an inevitable interface between myth and contemporary life.
See our other publications at:
http://www.utexas.edu/cola/depts/mes/center/publications/
or http://www.utexaspress.com
9 780292 754751
52195
ISBN 978-0-292-75475-1
AL-KONINEWWAWSAHARANOASIS
SAHARAN OASIS
IBRAHIM AL-KONI
NEW WAW
TRANSLATED BY
WILLIAM M. HUTCHINS