Static Forms

An ambitious first book that puts Arabic and Hebrew modernist writers side by side, arguing they independently developed similar literary techniques for depicting a present that feels stuck or suspended, shaped by colonialism and state-building. A respected Yale comparative-literature scholar calls it bold and original, and it's out from a solid university press series. This is dense, specialized academic reading on politically charged territory, so go in expecting a scholarly argument rather than a neutral survey, and know that so far only one publisher-solicited endorsement backs up the praise.