Reviewed: Hisham Bustani, “The Perception of Meaning”

Electronic Intifada, 16th February 2016

This collection of Bustani’s stories has been translated into English by Palestinian-Canadian translator Thoraya El-Rayyes, giving English-language readers their first opportunity to encounter Bustani’s work. What they will find is a witty, pugnacious, bitingly satirical and sharply glittering assemblage…
Any reader seeking realistic depictions or clear messages on the causes Bustani supports and for which he is also famous will be disappointed. This fractured narrative rejects solutions, heroes and neat endings.
But it is worth the challenge for the exhilarating boldness of its crisp critique of modern society — in the Arab world and globally — and the energy of its hyper-modern, dizzying journey through the beauty and sordidness of sex, war, nature and the human brain.

The full review is here.