Omar Eby's Books

Mill Creek

By: Omar Eby

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Mill Creek tells the story of the age-old struggle of an adolescent's attempts to understand himself and his world. Peter Martin, the brainy, shy, farm-boy narrator, pious beyond his years, fi ghts a private war: whether to remain with his strict farm people or whether to embrace his best friend's anarchic approach to Mennonite life. Arthur Nyce, with his fl ashy clothes, his repertoire of pop tunes, his dereliction of a school's prescribed piety and his open affection throws Peter off balance again and again. Mill Creek records Peter's fl uctuations between accepting and denying the diverse aspects of these two approaches to Mennonite life. An almost amorous friendship, the threat of the draft (Korean War), the lure of art, a pregnancy and a tragic drowning aid Peter to make compromising moves to pay tribute to his friend Arthur. In the end, Peter resolves to fi nd a way out of what he has come to understand as the religious oppression of his own community. Set on the campus of a boarding school, this wry, affectionate depiction of two boys' struggles towards adulthood illuminates the golden era of conservative Lancaster (PA) Mennonites in the early 1950s. The youth in Mill Creek are pious, sentimental and romantic. They blend a serious intent to imitate their stolid elders and to mock lightly without fully discarding their heritage. Tender and passionate, innocent and sentimental, rigid and heartbreaking, the novel is a requiem for joy.

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Page Count

314

Publisher

Xlibris Corporation

Published Date

ISBN 10

1453512357

ISBN 13

9781453512357

The Boy & the Old Man

Three Years in Somalia

By: Omar Eby

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The Boy & the Old Man

Three Years in Somalia

By: Omar Eby

So who is Omar Eby? A retired English professor (tenderhearted and cynical) who looks with affection and severity upon the young man he once was in Somalia. Ebys first chapter Learning My Name quickly and playfully sets the tone for this fascinating memoir, The Boy and the Old Man. Identifying with one Omar after another, Eby skips from a Taliban terrorist and a four-star general to a translator of Somali tales and an Old Testament duke; then recalls an English student in Mogadiscio and an Epicurean Persian poet; meets a Chilean Anabaptist and finally names the close friend of Prophet Muhammad, Omar ibn al Khattab. You think this an exercise in narcissism? Of course notthe author finds too many ties linking a nave Mennonite missionary boy to Muslim society and the incredible beauty of the natural worldshows too well the tensions between documented facts and dramatic memory. On the horn of Africa, Somali pirates seize tankers. On the mainland, clans fire rockets into each others quarters of Mogadishu, once the capital of the Somali Republic. But Omar Eby remembers another Somalia, when he taught there 50 years ago. Through the grid of accumulated years, Eby studies that missionary boy. The reader hears two voices: the 23-year old boy and the 73-year old man. Often the old man loves the boy; often the boy embarrasses him. The Somalis, Eby remembers as beautiful and exasperating, then, in 1959, as now, in 2009. The chapters are like a series of transparencies laid down one on top of the other. The boys views overlaid by the mans two visits to Somalia in his thirties and then memory laid over everything. With more details, everything should be clearer. Yet, Eby writes in the Introduction, we are pleasantly surprised to find that the historically reconstructed self is still blurred, as muddy as the Shebelli River which flows through Somalia from the Ethiopian highlands.

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Page Count

210

Publisher

Xlibris Corporation

Published Date

ISBN 10

1465325735

ISBN 13

9781465325730

The Boy & the Old Man

Three Years in Somalia

By: Omar Eby

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The Boy & the Old Man

Three Years in Somalia

By: Omar Eby

So who is Omar Eby? A retired English professor (tenderhearted and cynical) who looks with affection and severity upon the young man he once was in Somalia. Eby's first chapter "Learning My Name" quickly and playfully sets the tone for this fascinating memoir, The Boy and the Old Man. Identifying with one Omar after another, Eby skips from a Taliban terrorist and a four-star general to a translator of Somali tales and an Old Testament duke; then recalls an English student in Mogadiscio and an Epicurean Persian poet; meets a Chilean Anabaptist and finally names the close friend of Prophet Muhammad, Omar ibn al Khattab. You think this an exercise in narcissism? Of course not the author finds too many ties linking a naïve Mennonite missionary boy to Muslim society and the incredible beauty of the natural world shows too well the tensions between documented facts and dramatic memory. On the horn of Africa, Somali pirates seize tankers. On the mainland, clans fire rockets into each other's quarters of Mogadishu, once the capital of the Somali Republic. But Omar Eby remembers another Somalia, when he taught there 50 years ago. Through the grid of accumulated years, Eby studies that missionary boy. The reader hears two voices: the 23-year old boy and the 73-year old man. Often the old man loves the boy; often the boy embarrasses him. The Somalis, Eby remembers as beautiful and exasperating, then, in 1959, as now, in 2009. The chapters are like a series of transparencies laid down one on top of the other. The boy's views overlaid by the man's two visits to Somalia in his thirties and then memory laid over everything. With more details, everything should be clearer. "Yet," Eby writes in the Introduction, "we are pleasantly surprised to find that the historically reconstructed self is still blurred, as muddy as the Shebelli River which flows through Somalia from the Ethiopian highlands.

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Page Count

212

Published Date

ISBN 10

1436396379

ISBN 13

9781436396370

A Long Dry Season

By: Omar Eby

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A Long Dry Season

By: Omar Eby

East Africa provides the setting for this cross-cultural novel. Caught between the beauty of the land and the hardship of the people-and between his wife and his sense of mission-Thomas Martin struggles with the measure of his life. "Colorfully depicts the contrasts between Western and non-Western values and attitudes . . . Good fiction first and foremost." -Booklist

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Page Count

232

Published Date

ISBN 10

0934672601

ISBN 13

9780934672603

The Boy & the Old Man

Three Years in Somalia

By: Omar Eby

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The Boy & the Old Man

Three Years in Somalia

By: Omar Eby

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Page Count

210

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Xlibris Corporation

Published Date

ISBN 10

1465325735

ISBN 13

9781465325730

A Tale of Two Omars

A Memoir of Family, Revolution, and Coming Out During the Arab Spring

By: Omar Sharif

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A Tale of Two Omars

A Memoir of Family, Revolution, and Coming Out During the Arab Spring

By: Omar Sharif

A powerful and essential memoir of self-discovery . . . Brimming with beautiful remembrances of his grandfather and terrifying stories of abuse and homophobia, this is an essential book that shines a much-needed light on the intersection of Arab and queer identity." —Abdi Nazemian, Lambda Literary Award–winning author of Like a Love Story, a Stonewall Honor Book The grandson of Hollywood royalty on his father’s side and Holocaust survivors on his mother’s, Omar Sharif Jr. learned early on how to move between worlds, from the Montreal suburbs to the glamorous orbit of his grandparents’ Cairo. His famous name always protected him wherever he went. When, in the wake of the Arab Spring, he made the difficult decision to come out in the pages of The Advocate, he knew his life would forever change. What he didn’t expect was the backlash that followed. From bullying, to illness, attempted suicide, becoming a victim of sex trafficking, death threats by the thousands, revolution and never being able to return to a country he once called home, Omar Sharif Jr. has overcome more challenges than one might imagine. Drawing on the lessons he learned from both sides of his family, A Tale of Two Omars charts the course of an iconoclastic life, revealing in the process the struggles and successes that attend a public journey of self-acceptance and a life dedicated in service to others.

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Page Count

225

Publisher

Catapult

Published Date

ISBN 10

1640095586

ISBN 13

9781640095588

My Life as a Palestinian from a Place Called Bani Naim

By: Professor Omar Manasreh

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My Life as a Palestinian from a Place Called Bani Naim

By: Professor Omar Manasreh

This book is composed of short essays (stories) based on true events that the author experienced since his childhood. Many people read these poignant essays at the time when they were written and told the author they laughed and cried at the same time. These short stories reflect the sense of humor of the author as he described painful events. His journey from the Middle East to the USA was summarized in the story entitled Go West, Young Man. There are funny stories in this book, such as Neighbors in Bellbrook, Ohio, City of Outlaws, How a Puerto Rican Policeman Changed My Attitude and Ethics, and Clashes of Cultures. On the other hand, there are sad stories such as Go to Your Cousins in the East, Memories, When I Die, Bury Me in Yageen, and the Tragedy of Multiple Sclerosis. The author grew up in a very small town in Palestine called Bani Naim. This town was the subject of many of his stories, such as I Left My Soul in Bani Naim, Antiquity of Bani Naim, and Lonesome Without You. The author left his hometown (Bani Naim) at the age of sixteen, then he went back for a visit after forty-four years later to see the town was transformed into a small-sized city. In this visit, he wrote the story Bani Naim Gave Me Back My Soul to close the cycle of his painful journey. The author wrote several essays in this book that are related to the brouhaha status of the Middle East. The stories in this book were randomly listed, since the author believes there are opportunities in chaos.

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Page Count

150

Publisher

Xlibris Corporation

Published Date

ISBN 10

1543411347

ISBN 13

9781543411348

Letters to a Young Muslim

By: Omar Saif Ghobash

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Letters to a Young Muslim

By: Omar Saif Ghobash

Omar Saif Ghobash was born in 1971 in the United Arab Emirates -- the same year the country was founded -- to an Arab father and a Russian mother. After a traumatizing experience losing his father to a violent attack in 1977, when he was only six years old, Ghobash began to realize the severe violence that surrounded him in his home country. As he grew older, eventually being appointed as the UAE Ambassador to Russia in 2008, he began to reflect on what it means to be a Muslim, establishing a moral foundation rooted in the belief of the hard grind that is the crux of spiritual and practical living. This book is the result of the personal exploration Ghobash went through in the years after his father's death. The new generation of Muslims is tomorrow's leadership, and yet many are vulnerable to taking the violent shortcut to paradise and ignoring the traditions and foundations of Islam. The burning question, Ghobash argues, is how moderate Muslims will unite and find a voice that is true to Islam while actively and productively engaging in the modern world. Letters to a Young Muslim will explore how Arabs can provide themselves, their children, and their youth with a better chance of prosperity and peace in a globalized world, while attempting to explain the history and complications of the modern-day Arab landscape and how the younger generation can solve problems with extremists internally, contributing to overall world peace.

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Page Count

273

Publisher

Macmillan

Published Date

ISBN 10

1250119847

ISBN 13

9781250119841

Nasser in the Egyptian Imaginary

By: Omar Khalifah

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Nasser in the Egyptian Imaginary

By: Omar Khalifah

The late President of Egypt, Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918-1970), has been represented in many major works of Egyptian literature and film, and continues to have a presence in everyday life and discourse in the country. Omar Khalifah's analysis of these representations focuses on how the historical character of Nasser has emerged in the Egyptian imaginary. He explores the recurrent images of Nasser in literature and film and shows how Nasser constitutes a perfect site for plural interpretations. He argues that Nasser has become a rhetorical device, a figure of speech, a trope that connotes specific images constantly invoked whenever he is mentioned. His study makes a case for literature and art to be seen as alternative archives that question, erase, distort and add to the official history of Nasser.

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Page Count

256

Publisher

Edinburgh Studies in Modern Arabic Literature

Published Date

ISBN 10

1474432182

ISBN 13

9781474432184

Book's by Omar Eby

Mill Creek

Mill Creek

The Boy & the Old Man

The Boy & the Old Man

The Boy & the Old Man

The Boy & the Old Man

A Long Dry Season

A Long Dry Season

The Boy & the Old Man

The Boy & the Old Man

A Tale of Two Omars

A Tale of Two Omars

My Life as a Palestinian from a Place Called Bani Naim

My Life as a Palestinian from a Place Called Bani Naim

Letters to a Young Muslim

Letters to a Young Muslim

Nasser in the Egyptian Imaginary

Nasser in the Egyptian Imaginary

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