STORIES FROM THE CENTER OF THE WORLD

Short stories spotlighting the modern Middle East diaspora, from the cradle of civilization to outer space.

Elgrably, the editor of (and contributor of one story to) this engaging collection, breaks up its 25 stories into three categories: exile, love, and faith. But its hallmark is its range of registers: It encompasses Amany Kamal Eldin’s “The Suffering Mother of the Whole World,” a lament for the cosmopolitan Egypt lost in the 1952 revolution; Alireza Iranmehr’s bittersweet “Buenos Aires of Her Eyes,” about an Iranian man paying a woman to write love letters to his father; and May Haddad’s “Ride On, Shooting Star,” in which a woman’s efforts to reckon with her Lebanese roots drive her to interstellar travel. Many of the stories touch on well-known events, but Elgrably emphasizes offbeat perspectives and approaches. Farah Ahamed’s excellent “Anarkali, or Six Early Deaths in Lahore” captures the troubled relationship between a Pakistani woman and an earnest Western researcher studying church bombings; Natasha Tynes’ satirical “The Agency” turns on a Jordanian matchmaker and her impossibly demanding and sexist clients; and Ahmed Naji’s “Godshow.com” follows an Egyptian immigrant in Las Vegas on a disappointing hunt for an appropriate mosque. Throughout, the stories assert that simplistic definitions of the region are pointless, especially since cultures routinely interweave or stratify: Nektaria Anastasiadou’s “The Location of the Soul According to Benyamin Alhadeff” tracks an affair between a Jew and an Orthodox Christian in Istanbul, while Omar El Akkad’s “The Icarist” turns on a young immigrant’s realization that he dare not get too close to an emir’s daughter. Few stories are overtly lecturing, but awareness of injustice runs throughout the book. As the narrator of Hanif Kureishi’s “Asha and Haaji” notes, “The foreigner has been suspect from the beginning of time. But let us not forget: we are all potential foreigners.”

A lively and diverse set of tales from a complex region.