
Dancing Arabs
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Buy for $19.95
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Fajer Al-Kaisi
About this listen
The debut novel by 28-year-old Arab-Israeli Sayed Kashua has been praised around the world for its honesty, irony, humor, and uniquely human portrayal of a young man who moves between two societies, becoming a stranger to both. Kashua's nameless antihero has big shoes to fill, having grown up with the myth of a grandfather who died fighting the Zionists in 1948 and with a father who was jailed for blowing up a school cafeteria in the name of freedom. When he is granted a scholarship to an elite Jewish boarding school, his family rejoices, dreaming that he will grow up to be the first Arab to build an atom bomb. But to their dismay, he turns out to be a coward devoid of any national pride; his only ambition is to fit in with his Jewish peers who reject him. He changes his clothes, his accent, his eating habits, and becomes an expert at faking identities, sliding between different cultures, schools and languages, and eventually a Jewish lover and an Arab wife. With refreshing candor and self-deprecating wit, Dancing Arabs brilliantly maps one man's struggle to disentangle his personal and national identities, only to tragically and inevitably forfeit both.
©2002 Sayed Kashua. Translation copyright 2004 by Miriam Shlesinger. Recorded by arrangement with Grove Atlantic, Inc. (P)2014 Audible Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Native
- Dispatches from an Israeli-Palestinian Life
- By: Sayed Kashua, Ralph Mandel - translator
- Narrated by: Fajer Al-Kaisi
- Length: 7 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sayed Kashua has been praised by The New York Times as "a master of subtle nuance in dealing with both Arab and Jewish society". An Arab-Israeli who lived in Jerusalem for most of his life, Kashua started writing with the hope of creating one story that both Palestinians and Israelis could relate to, rather than two that cannot coexist together. He devoted his novels and his satirical weekly column published in Haaretz to telling the Palestinian story.
-
-
What a wonderful book
- By Samar on 07-28-16
By: Sayed Kashua, and others
-
Track Changes
- By: Sayed Kashua, Mitch Ginsburg - translator
- Narrated by: Fajer Al-Kaisi
- Length: 5 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hailed as "an unusually gifted storyteller with exceptional insight" (Jewish Tribune), Bernstein award-winning writer Sayed Kashua presents his masterful fourth novel Track Changes, which follows an Arab-Israeli man as he reckons with the weight of his past, his memories, and his cultural identity.
-
-
So sad, but beautiful
- By Miriam on 04-19-23
By: Sayed Kashua, and others
-
All the Rivers
- A Novel
- By: Dorit Rabinyan, Jessica Cohen - translator
- Narrated by: Gabra Zackman
- Length: 9 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Liat meets Hilmi on a blustery autumn afternoon in Greenwich Village, she finds herself unwillingly drawn to him. Charismatic and handsome, Hilmi is a talented young artist from Palestine. Liat, an aspiring translation student, plans to return to Israel the following summer. Despite knowing that their love can be only temporary, that it can exist only away from their conflicted homeland, Liat lets herself be enraptured by Hilmi.
-
-
One of the best books I’ve ever read
- By Vernik Vadim on 04-11-19
By: Dorit Rabinyan, and others
-
Second Person Singular
- By: Sayed Kashua, Mitch Ginsburg - translator
- Narrated by: Elijah Alexander
- Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From one of the most important contemporary voices to emerge from the Middle East comes a gripping tale of love and betrayal, honesty and artifice, which asks whether it is possible to truly reinvent ourselves, to shed our old skin and start anew.
-
-
Excellent story, but performance needed work
- By DaviM on 03-17-16
By: Sayed Kashua, and others
-
A Tale of Love and Darkness
- By: Amos Oz
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 23 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is the story of a boy growing up in the war-torn Jerusalem of the 40s and 50s in a small apartment crowded with books in 12 languages and relatives speaking nearly as many. His mother and father, both wonderful people, were ill-suited to each other. When Oz was 12 and a half years old, his mother committed suicide - a tragedy that was to change his life. He leaves the constraints of the family and the community of dreamers, scholars, and failed businessmen to join a kibbutz.
-
-
His life was interesting, but not his memoir
- By DR Harle on 01-27-19
By: Amos Oz
-
A Gentleman in Moscow
- A Novel
- By: Amor Towles
- Narrated by: Nicholas Guy Smith
- Length: 17 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1922, Count Alexander Rostov is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, and is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Rostov, an indomitable man of erudition and wit, has never worked a day in his life, and must now live in an attic room while some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history are unfolding outside the hotel’s doors. Unexpectedly, his reduced circumstances provide him entry into a much larger world of emotional discovery.
-
-
A Reprieve Amidst Ugly News, Relentless Negativity
- By Cathy Lindhorst on 08-27-17
By: Amor Towles
-
Native
- Dispatches from an Israeli-Palestinian Life
- By: Sayed Kashua, Ralph Mandel - translator
- Narrated by: Fajer Al-Kaisi
- Length: 7 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sayed Kashua has been praised by The New York Times as "a master of subtle nuance in dealing with both Arab and Jewish society". An Arab-Israeli who lived in Jerusalem for most of his life, Kashua started writing with the hope of creating one story that both Palestinians and Israelis could relate to, rather than two that cannot coexist together. He devoted his novels and his satirical weekly column published in Haaretz to telling the Palestinian story.
-
-
What a wonderful book
- By Samar on 07-28-16
By: Sayed Kashua, and others
-
Track Changes
- By: Sayed Kashua, Mitch Ginsburg - translator
- Narrated by: Fajer Al-Kaisi
- Length: 5 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hailed as "an unusually gifted storyteller with exceptional insight" (Jewish Tribune), Bernstein award-winning writer Sayed Kashua presents his masterful fourth novel Track Changes, which follows an Arab-Israeli man as he reckons with the weight of his past, his memories, and his cultural identity.
-
-
So sad, but beautiful
- By Miriam on 04-19-23
By: Sayed Kashua, and others
-
All the Rivers
- A Novel
- By: Dorit Rabinyan, Jessica Cohen - translator
- Narrated by: Gabra Zackman
- Length: 9 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Liat meets Hilmi on a blustery autumn afternoon in Greenwich Village, she finds herself unwillingly drawn to him. Charismatic and handsome, Hilmi is a talented young artist from Palestine. Liat, an aspiring translation student, plans to return to Israel the following summer. Despite knowing that their love can be only temporary, that it can exist only away from their conflicted homeland, Liat lets herself be enraptured by Hilmi.
-
-
One of the best books I’ve ever read
- By Vernik Vadim on 04-11-19
By: Dorit Rabinyan, and others
-
Second Person Singular
- By: Sayed Kashua, Mitch Ginsburg - translator
- Narrated by: Elijah Alexander
- Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From one of the most important contemporary voices to emerge from the Middle East comes a gripping tale of love and betrayal, honesty and artifice, which asks whether it is possible to truly reinvent ourselves, to shed our old skin and start anew.
-
-
Excellent story, but performance needed work
- By DaviM on 03-17-16
By: Sayed Kashua, and others
-
A Tale of Love and Darkness
- By: Amos Oz
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 23 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is the story of a boy growing up in the war-torn Jerusalem of the 40s and 50s in a small apartment crowded with books in 12 languages and relatives speaking nearly as many. His mother and father, both wonderful people, were ill-suited to each other. When Oz was 12 and a half years old, his mother committed suicide - a tragedy that was to change his life. He leaves the constraints of the family and the community of dreamers, scholars, and failed businessmen to join a kibbutz.
-
-
His life was interesting, but not his memoir
- By DR Harle on 01-27-19
By: Amos Oz
-
A Gentleman in Moscow
- A Novel
- By: Amor Towles
- Narrated by: Nicholas Guy Smith
- Length: 17 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1922, Count Alexander Rostov is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, and is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Rostov, an indomitable man of erudition and wit, has never worked a day in his life, and must now live in an attic room while some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history are unfolding outside the hotel’s doors. Unexpectedly, his reduced circumstances provide him entry into a much larger world of emotional discovery.
-
-
A Reprieve Amidst Ugly News, Relentless Negativity
- By Cathy Lindhorst on 08-27-17
By: Amor Towles
-
Cutting for Stone
- A Novel
- By: Abraham Verghese
- Narrated by: Sunil Malhotra
- Length: 23 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Marion and Shiva Stone are twin brothers born of a secret union between a beautiful Indian nun and a brash British surgeon. Orphaned by their mother’s death and their father’s disappearance, bound together by a preternatural connection and a shared fascination with medicine, the twins come of age as Ethiopia hovers on the brink of revolution.
-
-
An Epic Medical Novel
- By Audiophile on 07-11-09
By: Abraham Verghese
-
Suddenly, a Knock on the Door
- Stories
- By: Etgar Keret
- Narrated by: Ira Glass, Willem Dafoe, Ben Marcus, and others
- Length: 5 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Read by an all-star cast and featuring a bonus story special to the audio edition, Suddenly, a Knock on the Door is a one-of-a-kind audiobook.... Bringing up a child, lying to the boss, placing an order in a fast-food restaurant: in Etgar Keret’s new collection, daily life is complicated, dangerous, and full of yearning. In his most playful and most mature work yet, the living and the dead, silent children and talking animals, dreams and waking life coexist in an uneasy world.
-
-
Spices of imagination behind the door...
- By Belinda on 02-25-13
By: Etgar Keret
-
Girls of Riyadh
- A Novel
- By: Rajaa Alsanea
- Narrated by: Kate Reading
- Length: 8 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In her debut novel, Rajaa Alsanea reveals the social, romantic, and sexual tribulations of four young women from the elite classes of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Originally released in Arabic in 2005, it was immediately banned in Saudi Arabia because of the controversial and inflammatory content, though black-market copies circulated widely.
-
-
Fantastic Book
- By Kathy Daniels on 09-07-07
By: Rajaa Alsanea
-
Happy-Go-Lucky
- By: David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris
- Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Back when restaurant menus were still printed on paper, and wearing a mask—or not—was a decision made mostly on Halloween, David Sedaris spent his time doing normal things. As Happy-Go-Lucky opens, he is learning to shoot guns with his sister, visiting muddy flea markets in Serbia, buying gummy worms to feed to ants, and telling his nonagenarian father wheelchair jokes. But then the pandemic hits, and like so many others, he’s stuck in lockdown, unable to tour and read for audiences, the part of his work he loves most.
-
-
Great except for an audio glitch
- By Rynnkins on 06-01-22
By: David Sedaris
-
In Order to Live
- A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom
- By: Yeonmi Park
- Narrated by: Eji Kim
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In In Order to Live, Yeonmi Park shines a light not just into the darkest corners of life in North Korea, describing the deprivation and deception she endured and which millions of North Korean people continue to endure to this day, but also onto her own most painful and difficult memories. She tells with bravery and dignity for the first time the story of how she and her mother were betrayed and sold into sexual slavery in China and forced to suffer terrible psychological and physical hardship before they finally made their way to Seoul, South Korea - and to freedom.
-
-
Wow. What a story!
- By Jfm on 02-01-16
By: Yeonmi Park
-
The Color of Water
- A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother
- By: James McBride
- Narrated by: JD Jackson, Susan Denaker
- Length: 8 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Who is Ruth McBride Jordan? A self-declared "light-skinned" woman evasive about her ethnicity, yet steadfast in her love for her 12 Black children. James McBride, journalist, musician, and son, explores his mother's past, as well as his own upbringing and heritage, in a poignant and powerful debut, The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother.
-
-
Awesome
- By Michael on 05-30-17
By: James McBride
-
The Distance Between Us
- A Memoir
- By: Reyna Grande
- Narrated by: Yareli Arizmendi
- Length: 11 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this inspirational and unflinchingly honest memoir, acclaimed author Reyna Grande describes her childhood torn between the United States and Mexico, and shines a light on the experiences, fears, and hopes of those who choose to make the harrowing journey across the border. Reyna Grande vividly brings to life her tumultuous early years in this “compelling...unvarnished, resonant” (BookPage) story of a childhood spent torn between two parents and two countries.
-
-
opened my eyes to the beauty of our stories
- By Evelyn on 09-18-20
By: Reyna Grande
-
Infidel
- By: Ayaan Hirsi Ali
- Narrated by: Ayaan Hirsi Ali
- Length: 16 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This New York Times best-seller is the astonishing life story of award-winning humanitarian Ayaan Hirsi Ali. A deeply respected advocate for free speech and women's rights, Hirsi Ali also lives under armed protection because of her outspoken criticism of the Islamic faith in which she was raised.
-
-
Tough, Candid Assessment
- By Paul Mullen on 02-18-08
By: Ayaan Hirsi Ali
-
The Boston Girl: A Novel
- By: Anita Diamant
- Narrated by: Linda Lavin
- Length: 7 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Addie Baum is "The Boston Girl", born in 1900 to immigrant parents who were unprepared for and suspicious of America and its effect on their three daughters. Growing up in the North End, then a teeming multicultural neighborhood, Addie's intelligence and curiosity take her to a world her parents can’t imagine - a world of short skirts, movies, celebrity culture and new opportunities for women.
-
-
Quiet, lovely little story
- By Amazon Customer on 08-01-18
By: Anita Diamant
-
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
- By: Junot Diaz
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis, Staci Snell
- Length: 16 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Oscar is a sweet but disastrously overweight ghetto nerd who—from the New Jersey home he shares with his old world mother and rebellious sister—dreams of becoming the Dominican J.R.R. Tolkien and, most of all, finding love. But Oscar may never get what he wants. Blame the fukú—a curse that has haunted Oscar’s family for generations, following them on their epic journey from Santo Domingo to the USA.
-
-
Wondrous Book!!!
- By Robert on 06-22-12
By: Junot Diaz
-
I Know This Much Is True
- By: Wally Lamb
- Narrated by: Ken Howard
- Length: 5 hrs and 42 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the long awaited follow-up to the highly praised novel She's Come Undone, Dominick Birdsey must come to terms with himself, as well as with the schizophrenic twin brother he has spent his life both protecting and resenting.
-
-
Disappointing
- By Douglas on 03-20-08
By: Wally Lamb
-
Good Muslim Boy
- By: Osamah Sami
- Narrated by: Osamah Sami, David Tredinnick
- Length: 8 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Meet Osamah Sami: a schemer, a dreamer and a madcap antihero of spectacular proportions whose terrible life choices keep leading to cataclysmic consequences...despite his best laid plans to be a good Muslim boy. By the age of 13, Osamah had survived the Iran-Iraq war, peddled fireworks and chewing gum on the Iranian black market, proposed 'temporary marriage' not once but three times, and received countless floggings from the Piety Police....
-
-
Funny, heartwarming and one of the best
- By Sylvia Green on 07-26-17
By: Osamah Sami
What listeners say about Dancing Arabs
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Nancy
- 06-15-22
I have listened to all the Kashua novels
For all the suffering that Kashua portrays of the Arabs, especially the Palestinians, who are Israeli citizens, he is not an Arab nationalist. In light of his fiction it seems to me that Kashua is not proud of the group into which he was born. The Arab males in his stories are shlmiels, except for the one in Third Person Singular who assumes the identity of a Jew. In Dancing Arabs the anti- hero attends, like Kashua in his youth, a Jewish school because he performance academically is superior to others in his Arab-Israeli village. Yet the bright hero becomes an anti-hero, an alcoholic, a chain-smoker and an adulterer who barely provides for his Arab wife and baby. In the Kashua novels Arabs in the villages of Israel fight between themselves over the little bit of land that the Jews did not take. The villages are horribly violent because of Arab upon Arab crime. Kashua cannot countenance a two-state solution where his “ heroes” would find themselves in an independent Palestine, poor and not democratic. For Kashua’s young Arab men the sole solution of their plight is to leave the region.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- 🎉 Brooke G.
- 01-31-23
Incredible book, wonderfully performed
Incredible book, wonderfully performed - I read this for a college class and found it enlightening and entertaining. I wish all my assigned readings were so well written and performed!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- OA
- 09-12-18
Very Disappointing Narration
The narrator passes himself as a native speaker, with his heavy Arabic accent, but critical words and names are horribly mispronounced. As a native Arabic speaker, it's very jarring and hear the standard words mispronounced (like Watan, Izzeddine, Ayyar, the last name of Mahmoud Darwiche, and many more). A less pretentious narration would have gone a long way. It's unfortunate, because it takes away from an otherwise very engaging story of a man's struggle with identity and oppression.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful