Overview

Without tells a story of searching for belonging both in the world and within your own skin. Born in Saudi Arabia to a Yemeni family, the novel’s protagonist has been ill-at-ease since childhood, because she never felt like she was a girl. Alia’s alienation grows as she slowly comes to realise that she is, in fact, a man and begins the transition to live life as Ali. This is a very important story to tell as it portrays the struggles of gender non-conforming people in society. The novel is sensitive and frank in how it approaches an intersex person’s struggles with the realities of love, friendship, and survival against the backdrop of a life lived between Saudi Arabia and Yemen, and then later the UK. Without navigates complex issues in a very human way, painting an honest portrait of how people come to terms with challenges they never expected they would face. Told in a deceptively simple style, through a tightly woven and skillful narration, Without makes these struggles resonate with us all.

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9781788710800

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Younis Al Akhzami is an author from Oman. His work has been featured in various local, regional, and international literary forums. He served as the Head of the Short Story Writers in Oman from 2006 to 2007 and is one of the founders of the Society of Writers in Oman. He holds a Master’s degree in Information Systems Management (USA, 1994) and a PhD in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) (UK, 2000). His publications include Alnatheer (1992), Habs Alnawras (1996), Humma Ayar (1999), Nuqoosh (2007), Al Sawt (2012), Bar Alhekman (2016), Kahf Adam (2017), Ghabta Hashish (2018), Bedoon (2019), and Ras Madrakah (2022). He has also served as a judge for numerous literary contests, evaluating both short stories and novel manuscripts. Michelle Hartman is a scholar and literary translator. She received her BA from Columbia College in 1993 and her DPhil from the University of Oxford in 1998. Currently, she is a professor of Arabic and francophone literature at the Institute of Islamic Studies at McGill University. Hartman is the author of numerous academic articles and several monographs, including Breaking Broken English: Black Arab Literary Solidarities and the Politics of Language, which won the College Language Association Award for Creative Scholarship in 2020. As a translator, Hartman has brought twelve novels and a short story collection from Arabic into English. Her translations include Iman Humaydan’s Wild Mulberries and The Weight of Paradise; Alexandra Chreiteh’s Always Coca-Cola and Ali and His Russian Mother; Shahla Ujayli’s Summer with the Enemy and A Sky So Close to Us; and Jana Elhassan’s The 99th Floor and All the Women Inside Me, among others. Wild Mulberries was shortlisted for the 2009 Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation. Caline Nasrallah is a Master’s student at the Institute of Islamic Studies at McGill University, where her research focuses on language as a feminist tool. She also works as a translator, mostly from Arabic to English, and has an MA in Translation from the École de traducteurs et d’interprètes de Beyrouth (USJ).

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