A review by satsumabug
The Anchor Book of Modern Arabic Fiction by Denys Johnson-Davies

3.0

We chose this for our book club because none of us knew anything about Arabic fiction. There are some great stories in here, but it's a lot to get through... someone should have read it first and picked out selections. As it was, even with a whole month to read it, a lot of the stories blended together in my mind. I didn't like that many of the selections were excerpts from longer works; I guess the editor did that to give us more exposure to some of the better-known novels, but it was tough enough to keep everything straight without also having to deal with little chunks of longer books. Consequently, I can't even say this book was successful at giving me a tasting of different Arabic authors, because I'm just left feeling relieved that I got through the book -- not excited about picking up more books from any of the authors. It's a shame.