The November, 201o Words Without Borders is available now covering the Modern Middle East. In this issue the Middle East is Turkey and lands to the East, rather than Arabic speaking lands.

This month we celebrate the publication of our fifth WWB anthology, Tablet and Pen: Literary Landscapes from the Modern Middle East, edited by Reza Aslan. The aim of this book, and of this complementary issue, is to provide a different, more authentic perception of this complex region, an image not fashioned by the descriptions of invaders, but rather one that arises from the diverse literatures of its most acclaimed poets and writers. These translations from Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Urdu display the rich poetic tradition of the region and provide a new paradigm for viewing the mosaic that is the modern Middle East. We hope that the writing presented here and in the anthology may help move our consciousness of the region away from the ubiquitous images of terrorists and fanatics and toward a new, more constructive set of ideas and metaphors—wrought by the region’s own artists, poets, and writers—with which to understand the struggles and aspirations of this restless and multifaceted part of the world.

You can read Arab Literature (In English’s) take on the Gibran piece here.