Books – War Watch

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Stolen Revolution by Bozorgmehr Sharafedin and Yeganeh Torbati review – Iran’s recent history explained
ByDina Nayeri June 10, 2026

This account of the Islamic Republic and its discontents told via six contrasting lives should be required readingIt’s difficult in 2026 to talk about Iran without confronting a lot of crude certainty. The average non-Iranian gets their informatio…

Read More Stolen Revolution by Bozorgmehr Sharafedin and Yeganeh Torbati review – Iran’s recent history explained
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei | Benjamin Netanyahu | Books | Conflict and arms | Culture | Donald Trump | Gaza | Global development | Internally displaced people | Iran | Iran's nuclear programme | Israel | Israel-Gaza war | Israel–Iran War | Middle East and north Africa | Nuclear weapons | Palestine | Palestinian territories | Petrol prices | Poetry | Scotland | Universities | World news

Written under collapsing ceilings, typed on phones: the poetry bringing Palestine to the world
ByStephen Burgen May 25, 2026

Two new poetry collections tackle themes of trauma, exile, resistance and love amid conflict in Gaza Poetry may not be the best response to aerial bombardment, but for many Palestinians it has become a line of defence amid the rubble and ongoing killin…

Read More Written under collapsing ceilings, typed on phones: the poetry bringing Palestine to the world
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei | Benjamin Netanyahu | Books | Culture | Donald Trump | Gaza | Iran | Iran's nuclear programme | Israel | Israel-Gaza war | Israel–Iran War | Middle East and north Africa | Nuclear weapons | Palestine | Palestinian territories | Petrol prices | Protest | Publishing | World news

Sally Rooney on a new Hebrew translation of Intermezzo: ‘The Israeli culture sector is complicit in apartheid’
BySally Rooney and Samir Eskanda May 19, 2026

Four years after Rooney cited BDS in declining a different Israeli publisher, she speaks with activist Samir Eskanda about the artist’s role in the boycott movementSally Rooney to publish Hebrew translation of novel with BDS-compliant publisherIntermez…

Read More Sally Rooney on a new Hebrew translation of Intermezzo: ‘The Israeli culture sector is complicit in apartheid’
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei | Benjamin Netanyahu | Books | Culture | Donald Trump | Gaza | Iran | Iran's nuclear programme | Israel | Israel-Gaza war | Israel–Iran War | JM Coetzee | Middle East and north Africa | Nuclear weapons | Palestine | Palestinian territories | Petrol prices

JM Coetzee declines to attend Jerusalem writers festival over Israel’s ‘genocidal campaign in Gaza’
BySian Cain May 7, 2026

Nobel laureate says he previously considered himself a supporter of Israel, but ‘the campaign of annihilation in Gaza has changed all that’Nobel laureate JM Coetzee has declined to attend an upcoming literature festival in Israel, writing a excoriating…

Read More JM Coetzee declines to attend Jerusalem writers festival over Israel’s ‘genocidal campaign in Gaza’
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei | Benjamin Netanyahu | Books | Culture | Donald Trump | Gaza | Holocaust | Iran | Iran's nuclear programme | Israel | Israel-Gaza war | Israel–Iran War | Middle East and north Africa | Nuclear weapons | Palestine | Palestinian territories | Petrol prices

What went wrong in Israel? A genocide scholar examines ‘what Zionism became’
ByAaron Gell April 21, 2026

In his new book, Omer Bartov tracks how a liberatory strand of Zionism transformed into an extremist ideology that he sees as responsible for genocide in GazaFormer Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon, when asked to explain the apparent about-face that…

Read More What went wrong in Israel? A genocide scholar examines ‘what Zionism became’
Africa | Albert Camus | Algeria | Ayatollah Ali Khamenei | Benjamin Netanyahu | Books | Crime films | Culture | Donald Trump | Drama films | Europe | Film | Film adaptations | France | François Ozon | Gaza | Iran | Iran's nuclear programme | Israel | Israel–Iran War | Middle East and north Africa | Nuclear weapons | Palestinian territories | Petrol prices | World news

The Stranger review – lustrously beautiful and superbly realised modern take on the Camus classic
ByPeter Bradshaw April 7, 2026

François Ozon’s adaptation of the 1942 novella L’Etranger passionately honours the original text while bringing a contemporary perspective to its themes of empire and raceA heatstricken reverie of violence and mystery unfolds in this film, a numb ecsta…

Read More The Stranger review – lustrously beautiful and superbly realised modern take on the Camus classic
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei | Benjamin Netanyahu | Books | Donald Trump | Family | Fiction | Gaza | Iran | Iran's nuclear programme | Israel | Israel–Iran War | Middle East and north Africa | Nuclear weapons | Palestine | Palestinian territories | Petrol prices | US news | World news

My last fight with my Palestinian father still haunts me. Neither of us could bury the past
ByHannah Lillith Assadi March 26, 2026

My eternally exiled father was dying and witnessing a siege on Gaza. Afterwards I could go home – but he couldn’tThe last fight we ever had, my father and I, occurred on a night in May 2021 on the eve of his first chemo treatment. At this point in our …

Read More My last fight with my Palestinian father still haunts me. Neither of us could bury the past
Africa | Algeria | Ayatollah Ali Khamenei | Benjamin Netanyahu | Books | Culture | Donald Trump | Emmanuel Macron | Gaza | Iran | Iran's nuclear programme | Islam | Israel | Israel–Iran War | Middle East and north Africa | Nuclear weapons | Palestinian territories | Petrol prices | Religion | World news

‘I felt betrayed, naked’: did a prize-winning novelist steal a woman’s life story?
ByMadeleine Schwartz February 17, 2026

His novel was praised for giving a voice to the victims of Algeria’s brutal civil war. But one woman has accused Kamel Daoud of having stolen her story – and the ensuing legal battle has become about much more than literary ethicsEvery November, leadin…

Read More ‘I felt betrayed, naked’: did a prize-winning novelist steal a woman’s life story?
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei | Benjamin Netanyahu | Books | Culture | Donald Trump | Gaza | Iran | Iran's nuclear programme | Israel | Israel-Gaza war | Israel–Iran War | Middle East and north Africa | Nuclear weapons | Palestine | Palestinian territories | Penguin | Petrol prices | Publishing | World news

Marwan Barghouti, ‘Palestine’s Mandela’, to publish book from prison
ByEmma Loffhagen February 3, 2026

Unbroken: In Pursuit of Freedom for Palestine is a collection of writings by the Palestinian political leader, who has been held in Israeli prisons since 2002A collection of writings by the imprisoned Palestinian political leader Marwan Barghouti will …

Read More Marwan Barghouti, ‘Palestine’s Mandela’, to publish book from prison
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei | Benjamin Netanyahu | Books | Donald Trump | Gaza | Iran | Iran's nuclear programme | Israel | Israel–Iran War | Middle East and north Africa | Nuclear weapons | Palestinian territories | Petrol prices

A moment that changed me: in the bombed-out ruins of an apartment block, I saw a book I’d translated
ByAmir Mehdi Haghighat January 7, 2026

The sight of my work, torn and singed but still legible, made me realise the importance of translating and protecting stories – so they remain when everything else falls awayIn the rubble of a collapsed apartment block, a single image stayed with me: a…

Read More A moment that changed me: in the bombed-out ruins of an apartment block, I saw a book I’d translated