Four strangers meet on a turbulent flight from Dubai to London: Amira, a canny Moroccan prostitute; Lamis, a 30-year old Iraqi divorcee; Nicholas, an English expert on Islamic art; and Samir, a Lebanese man who is delivering a monkey on a mission he doesn't fully understand. Once safely on British soil, Lamis and Nicholas fall in love, Samir chases after blond British youths, and Amira reinvents herself as a princess, the better to lure clients at the best London hotels. Through the city and across cultural borders, Only in London wittily portrays the smells, sounds, and sights of...

The Arab world's greatest folk stories re-imagined by the acclaimed Lebanese novelist Hanan al-Shaykh, published to coincide with the world tour of a magnificent musical and theatrical production directed by Tim Supple

From a major novelist of the Arab world comes a frank, funny and fearless story about two women looking for love, set in Italy, Lebanon and London Best friends Huda and Yvonne are on holiday in the Italian Riviera. Now grown up, successful and independent, their adolescent tribulations in Lebanon are far behind them - but the problems of love, sex and family spring eternal. Yvonne doesn't know what she's doing wrong, either there or back in London - she seems to spend her time waiting for the right man to come along and not leave again just as quickly. Huda has no problems in this...