Rayyan Al-Shawaf

Rayyan Al-Shawaf

Reviewer
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Rayyan Al-Shawaf is a Malta-based book critic whose reviews and essays have appeared in the Boston Globe, Christian Science Monitor, Globe and Mail, LARB, Los Angeles Times, PopMatters, San Francisco Chronicle, Toronto Star, Washington...

Latest

The Return

Oct 14, 2016
"When Qaddafi took my father," Hisham Matar writes in the long-awaited nonfiction account of his father's disappearance, "he placed me in a space not much bigger than the cell Father was in. I paced back and forth, anger in one direction, hatred in the other, until I could feel my insides grow small and hard."

Their Promised Land

Jun 10, 2016
Were Ian Buruma not an acclaimed historian, this book would probably never have been published. Yet the story of his grandparents, which spans both world wars, is full of resonance for contemporary Europe’s struggle with mass immigration and national identity.

Overreach

Jan 9, 2015
A new book is arguably the best account of what went wrong with the project to turn Baathist Iraq into a liberal democracy, but flawed by the insistence that failure was inevitable due to Iraq's sociopolitical realities.

Pink Sari Revolution

Aug 17, 2013
This is the story of India's Pink Gang, a grass-roots movement that confronts Indian officialdom over the rights of the poor and the marginalized, especially women.This book tells the story of India's Pink Gang, a grass-roots movement that confronts Indian officialdom over the rights of the poor and the marginalized, especially women.