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Home > Translation > The World Bookshelf > Books > Being Arab

Being Arab

A passionate meditation on contemporary Arab identity. Before his assassination in 2005, Samir Kassir was one of Lebanon’s foremost public intellectuals. In Being Arab, a thought-provoking assessment of Arab identity, he calls on the people of the Middle East to reject both western double standards and Islamism in order to take the future into their own hands.

Being Arab explores what Kassir describes as the ‘Arab malaise’: the political and intellectual stagnation of the Arab world. Passionately written and brilliantly argued, this rallying cry for change has now been heard by millions.

‘Part historical essay and part political pamphlet… This is a genuine cry against the forces of Islamic extremism.’
New Statesman

Being Arab was launched in December 2006 at the Frontline Club with a screening of Samir Kassir: What are you writing? followed by a Q & A with filmmaker Ephrem Kossaify and Gisele Khoury. The book was also presented at the French Institute in an event titled ‘The Middle East, Gateway to World Peace?’

Being Arab won the 2007 Index on Censorship Book Award for freedom of expression.

Author

Samir Kassir

Samir Kassir

Books

Being Arab

Samir Kassir (1960-2005) was one of Lebanon’s best-known journalists and historians. A columnist for the daily newspaper An-Nahar, he also wrote regularly for Le Monde Diplomatique and published a number of important works in French, including a history of Beirut, and a study of the Lebanese civil war. One of the most prominent voices on the Arab left, Kassir was a strong campaigner for the Palestinian cause, and a vocal critic of the Syrian occupation of Lebanon. He was assassinated by a car bomb in Beirut on Thursday 2 June 2005.

Translator

Will Hobson

Will Hobson

Books

Being Arab

Former Contributing Editor at Granta Books, Will Hobson is a critic and translator from the French and German, whose translations include Viramma: A Pariah’s Life, Viramma (Verso); The Battle, Patrick Rambaud (Picador); Sans Moi, Marie Desplechin (Granta); Benares, Barlen Pyamootoo (Canongate); and The Dead Man in the Bunker, Martin Pollack (Faber). He writes for the Independent on Sunday, the Observer and Granta magazine, and translated Greenpeace’s presentation to the Pope before the Kyoto Summit into Latin.

Published by

Verso, 2006
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A passionate meditation on contemporary Arab identity. Before his assassination in 2005, Samir Kassir was one of Lebanon’s foremost public intellectuals. In Being Arab, a thought-provoking assessment of Arab identity, he calls on the people of the Middle East to reject both western double standards and Islamism in order to take the future into their own hands.

Being Arab explores what Kassir describes as the ‘Arab malaise’: the political and intellectual stagnation of the Arab world. Passionately written and brilliantly argued, this rallying cry for change has now been heard by millions.

‘Part historical essay and part political pamphlet… This is a genuine cry against the forces of Islamic extremism.’
New Statesman

Being Arab was launched in December 2006 at the Frontline Club with a screening of Samir Kassir: What are you writing? followed by a Q & A with filmmaker Ephrem Kossaify and Gisele Khoury. The book was also presented at the French Institute in an event titled ‘The Middle East, Gateway to World Peace?’

Being Arab won the 2007 Index on Censorship Book Award for freedom of expression.

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