“Even in the most uneventful of our lives, we are called upon to choose our battles...”
― The Ministry of Utmost Happiness
― The Ministry of Utmost Happiness
“Writers imagine that they cull stories from the world. I'm beginning to believe that vanity makes them think so. That it's actually the other way around. Stories cull writers from the world. Stories reveal themselves to us. The public narrative, the private narrative - they colonize us. They commission us. They insist on being told. Fiction and nonfiction are only different techniques of story telling. For reasons that I don't fully understand, fiction dances out of me, and nonfiction is wrenched out by the aching, broken world I wake up to every morning.”
― The God of Small Things
― The God of Small Things
“Nationalism of one kind or another was the cause of most of the genocide of the twentieth century. Flags are bits of colored cloth that governments use first to shrink-wrap people's minds and then as ceremonial shrouds to bury the dead.”
― War Talk
― War Talk
“الغربة كالموت, المرء يشعر دائما أن الموت هو الشيء الذي يحدث للآخرين , منذ ذلك الصيف أصبحت ذلك الغريب الذي كنت أظنه دائما سواي .”
― رأيت رام الله
― رأيت رام الله
“And when we look in through the windows, all we see are shadows. And when we try and listen, all we hear is a whispering. And we cannot understand the whispering, because our minds have been invaded by a war. A war that we have both won and lost. The very worst sort of war. A war that captures dreams and re-dreams them. A war that has made us adore our conquerors and despise ourselves.”
― The God of Small Things
― The God of Small Things
Alaa’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Alaa’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
Alaa hasn't connected with their friends on Goodreads, yet.
Polls voted on by Alaa
Lists liked by Alaa

