And you wanted to hurry him up a little so you made a move, an unmistakable move; one that nobody could pretend had been a misunderstanding. And he – he ignored it – ignored you. What would you feel?
AHDAF SOUEIFAnd you wanted to hurry him up a little so you made a move, an unmistakable move; one that nobody could pretend had been a misunderstanding. And he – he ignored it – ignored you. What would you feel?
AHDAF SOUEIFIf people can write to each other across space, why can they not write across time too?
AHDAF SOUEIFTell me, if you thought a man had a tendresse for you, but he wasn’t doing anything about it.
AHDAF SOUEIFThat narrow stretch of sand knows nothing in the world better than it does the white waves that whip it , caress it , collapse on to it .
AHDAF SOUEIFThey’re only there to wait for the men. To love them and be loved back or not — mostly not; to be beaten up or killed; to appear as a face on the wall of Meurseault’s cell.
AHDAF SOUEIFFrom 1949 to the present, for every dollar the US spent on an African, it spent $250.65 on an Israeli, and for every dollar it spent on someone from the Western Hemisphere outside the US, it spent $214 on an Israeli.
AHDAF SOUEIFShe had been wrong to think it wouldn’t matter that much to him, yes,He took her for granted, of course he did , but he took her for granted – not like an old coat in the corner of a dark cupboard, as she’d put it to herself , but like the very air that he breathed .
AHDAF SOUEIFI now find myself looking at every sentence, every image, that purports to tell the West about the Arabs and the Muslims with this question in mind: to what extent does it feed into existing stereotypes and established prejudice?
AHDAF SOUEIFYou know, I’ve been thinking: all the women in the books you like — Sartre and Camus and all that — they don’t really exist. Not as people.
AHDAF SOUEIFAnd what does the beach knows of depths, the cold, the currents just there, where-do you see it? – Where the water turns a deeper blue.
AHDAF SOUEIFWhen each moment, each perception is brought out with care, unfolded like a precious gem from its layers of the softest tissue paper and laid in front of the beloved — turned this way and that, examined, considered.
AHDAF SOUEIFSo at the heart of all things is the germ of their overthrow; the closer you are to the heart, the closer to the reversal. Nowhere to go but down. You reach the core and then you’re blown away–
AHDAF SOUEIFI bring you Islam and Luxor and Alexandria and Lutes and tambourines and date-palms and silk rugs and sunshine and incense and voluptuous ways.
AHDAF SOUEIFEgypt.mother of civilization, dreaming herself through the centuries. Dreaming us all, her children: those who stay and work for her and complain of her, and those who leave and yearn for her and blame her with bitterness for driving them away.
AHDAF SOUEIFSometimes,because we use the same words,we assume we mean the same thing
AHDAF SOUEIFIt is that happy stretch of time when the lovers set to chronicling their passion. When no glance, no tone of voice is so fleeting but it shines with significance.
AHDAF SOUEIF