Anyone who has heard Taha Muhammad Ali read his poetry will know he's the greatest of Palestinian writers. There are others who've been better known -- Mahmoud Darwish, for example, who died last year and was generally called the Palestinian national poet. But Taha, who sat quietly in his tourist shop in Nazareth until his first publication at the age of 50, is a truly original voice, escaping the politics and nostalgia that mars some of his colleagues' work. Now in his 80s, Taha is still a…
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Added by Matt Rees on March 31, 2009 at 7:52pm —
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The New York Times features me in
an article published this weekend about
Global Post, the new foreign news website. As the Times explains, Global Post is intended to replace all the foreign news that's no longer produced by US newspapers, magazines and tv channels -- because those media "cut costs" and fired everyone.…
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Added by Matt Rees on March 23, 2009 at 5:42pm —
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On my recent tour of Germany, I was
interviewed (in English) on the 3Sat tv channel's stage at the Leipzig Book Fair. Of the big Germany book festivals, this is the one that gives the most time to readers and authors (the biggest, Frankfurt, is mainly for publishers to get a little more than tipsy together -- oh and to do some deals, of course). I was interviewed by a lovely, knowledgable German journalist named Tina Mendelsohn about my…
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Added by Matt Rees on March 22, 2009 at 7:42pm —
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On
Global Post, I report on the fairly crazy mess (even by Middle East standards) in which both Israeli and Palestinian politics find themselves just now.
Added by Matt Rees on March 20, 2009 at 7:35pm —
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Guest blogging on
A Book Blogger's Diary, I write about why my publishers like to have a new title for the same book in almost every country...Choosing one is almost as hard as writing the book itself... Almost.
Added by Matt Rees on March 20, 2009 at 7:22pm —
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In its listing of recommended books new to paperback,
The New York Times features the second of my Palestinian crime novels
A GRAVE IN GAZA, just out in softcover from Mariner/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. (The UK paperback, titled THE SALADIN MURDERS, has been out in small format for a while already.) Here's what the Times writes:
"Omar Yussef, an aging…
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Added by Matt Rees on March 20, 2009 at 7:02pm —
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Historic World War I cemeteries badly damaged in recent attacks.
By Matt Beynon Rees -
GlobalPost
In Gaza, violence is so prevalent, even death doesn’t put you beyond its reach. Nor does a grave protect you from further insult to your dignity.
The fighting between Israeli forces and Hamas gunmen at the turn of the year damaged several hundred of…
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Added by Matt Rees on March 9, 2009 at 4:48pm —
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In popular blog
Bookslut, Colleen Mondor has a terrific review of a series of books set overseas, giving it a particular slant toward young readers. She designates my new Palestinian crime novel, THE SAMARITAN'S SECRET, her "cool read" of the week. You can see other reviews by
Colleen here, but meanwhile this is what she writes about my novel:…
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Added by Matt Rees on March 6, 2009 at 4:27pm —
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When I'm not writing crime novels, this is what I have to put up with
By Matt Beynon Rees -
GlobalPost
Published: March 4, 2009 15:25 ET
RAMALLAH — The further back you are in a motorcade, the more bemused the expression on the faces of the pedestrians watching you speed by. When I passed them, the people of this Palestinian city stared with slack jaws, as though they wondered if the parade of shiny black…
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Added by Matt Rees on March 5, 2009 at 5:13pm —
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People who don't know any better sometimes tell me that I'm a good writer and they'd like to see me write a "real novel," instead of my Palestinian crime novels. Usually I tell them Raymond Chandler once wrote that there are just as many bad "real" literary novels written as bad mysteries -- but the bad literary novels just don't get published. Now I'll be able to add something else to my always polite correction of this misconception about crime novels. That's because of a review of my new…
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Added by Matt Rees on March 3, 2009 at 9:39pm —
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Jerusalem endures both suffocating dust and torrential downpours as Middle East confronts water shortage.By Matt Beynon Rees -
GlobalPost
Published: February 23, 2009 12:02 ET
JERUSALEM — When you experience the weather here, you start to understand how the biblical prophets found such great material for their doomy prognostications. Last week high temperatures had locals wearing T-shirts in midwinter, then a…
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Added by Matt Rees on March 2, 2009 at 7:57pm —
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When things look bad in the Middle East, foreign correspondents and diplomats and local politicians tend to forecast every catastrophe up to -- and sometimes including -- the end of the world. I generally have a more relaxed approach.
Why? Because of
Mary Renault.
I discovered Renault in a used bookstore on a rather ratty lane in West Jerusalem in 1999. I was Middle East correspondent for
The Scotsman at the…
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Added by Matt Rees on March 2, 2009 at 1:09am —
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A foreign correspondent builds memories out of blood and corpses. Often they turn to nightmares.
While working on my second Palestinian crime novel,
A Grave in Gaza, I sometimes wept as I wrote. I used to think that meant I was a damned good writer. Now I know it was my trauma, collected over a decade of monthly visits to Gaza, seeping onto the page.
I hope that makes it a better novel. I know it saved me from the…
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Added by Matt Rees on March 1, 2009 at 1:16am —
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In the liberal Israeli daily Ha'aretz, Carol Novis
reviews the third of my Palestinian crime novels
THE SAMARITAN'S SECRET. I'm happy that she doesn't view my novel as coming down on one side or the other in the conflict here. I think of my novels as humanist, filtering out the politics that makes people see the Palestinians as stereotypes (either of terrorists or…
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Added by Matt Rees on February 25, 2009 at 5:18pm —
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In the lastest issue of the West Sussex County Times, my new Palestinian crime novel "The Samaritan's Secret" gets this lovely review:
"If you haven't yet entered the colourful, chaotic, tragi-comic world of amateur Palestinian detective Omar Yussef, then take a satisfying plunge with the third in this genre-busting crime series. With a race-against-time plot involving missing millions, a dying religious sect, fanatical political leaders and a corrupt police force, the real story turns out…
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Added by Matt Rees on February 21, 2009 at 10:48pm —
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The new U.S. website Global Post, which aims to provide Americans with the foreign news that they're missing since their newspapers fired almost all their international correspondents, features a series of stories by me. They're intended as introductions to my new Palestinian crime novel, THE SAMARITAN'S SECRET -- colorful features about life for the Palestinians who appear in the book.…
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Added by Matt Rees on February 20, 2009 at 8:26pm —
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The Mystery Books News blog has an advance notice of a great review of THE SAMARITAN'S SECRET, the third of my Palestinian crime novels, today. It'll be published in Mysterious Reviews and includes this:
"The intricate plot, memorable characters, expressive narrative, and relentless pacing will no doubt cause The Samaritan's Secret to be remembered as one of the best mysteries of the year."
Read a preview of the full review
here.
Added by Matt Rees on February 18, 2009 at 8:02pm —
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There's a review of
The Samaritan's Secret, the third of my Palestinian crime novels, in
The Sowetan, South Africa, today by Nthabisang Moreosele. I'm rather delighted with it, as it sums up the ways in which I've tried to create a different kind of detective in my books.
"Omar Yussef is the most unlikely detective in modern whodunnits," the review states. "He does not study fingerprints, collect physical evidence or check alibis...He believes that one must intervene in…
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Added by Matt Rees on February 18, 2009 at 1:02am —
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