Includes bibliographical references.

The Chair Carrier / Yusuf Idris -- The Gap in Kaltouma's Fence / Ibrahim Ishaq Ibrahim -- My Brother / Mohamed El-Bisatie -- At a Woman's House / Mohammed Ahmed Abdul Wali -- Clocks Like Horses / Mohammed Khudayyir -- Advice from a Sensible Young Man / Bahaa Taher -- Glimpses from the Life of Maugoud Abdul Maugoud and Two Postscripts / Yusuf Sharouni -- Another Evening at the Club / Alifa Rifaat -- The Cypriot Man / Tayeb Salih -- The Drumming Sands / Ibrahim Al-Kouni -- Cairo is a Small City / Nabil Gorgy -- The Persian Carpet / Hanan Shaykh -- Voices from Near and Far / Abdul Ilah Abdul Razzak -- Birds' Footsteps in the Sand / Edward El-Kharrat -- Life by Instalments / Mohammed Barrada -- Dreams Seen by a Blind Boy / Yusuf Abu Rayya -- The Trial of the Small Black Woman / Abdel-Hakim Kassem -- Flower Crazy / Mohammed Chukri -- The Old Man / Gamil Atia Ibrahim -- Distant Seas / Habib Selmi -- The Little Girl in Green / Ibrahim Aslan -- Small Sun / Zakaria Tamer -- The Slave Fort / Ghassan Kanafani -- The Kerosene Stove / Mahmoud Al-Wardani.

An alleyway of Tangier as seen through the eyes of a prostitute, the price paid by a sophisticated Cairene philanderer for his infatuation with a young bedouin girl, the callous treatment a young wife receives from the man to whom she has been married off. These are some of the themes of the twenty-four stories in this volume, each by a different author and all rendered into English by one of the finest translators of Arabic fiction. Among the authors represented are Edward El-Kharrat, Bahaa Taher, Alifa Rifaat, and Ghassan Kanafani. Through the eyes of insiders, these stories show us the intimate texture of life throughout the diverse countries and cultures of the Arabic world.