Joris Luyendijk Books

In Hello Everybody! a bestseller in his native Holland, Joris Luyendijk tells the story of his five yearsas a reporter in the Middle East. Young and inexperienced but fluent in Arabic, he speaks to stone throwers and soldiers, taxi drivers and professors, victims and aggressors chronicling first-hand experiences of dictatorship, occupation and war. But the more he witnesses, the less he understands and he becomes increasingly aware of the yawning gap between what he sees on the ground and what is later reported in the media. As a correspondent he is privy to the multitude of narratives with conflicting implications, yet again and again the media favours those stories that will confirm and reinforce the oversimplified beliefs of the West.Hello Everybody! Is a story of disillusionment and enlightenment, by turns hilarious and despairing, but most importantly it is a powerful wake up call to the way the media gives us a filtered and manipulated version of reality in the Middle East.

A gripping work of reportage about the financial time bomb at the heart of our society.

Lang voordat integratie van moslims in Nederland een hot issue werd, probeerde Joris Luyendijk het omgekeerde: integreren in een islamitisch land. Hij schreef zich in aan de universiteit van Cairo en leefde een jaar lang tussen Egyptische leeftijdsgenoten. Luyendijk sprak met hen over liefde. islam, het westen, seks, democratie, homo's, joden, fundamentalisme. emancipatie en de zin van het bestaan.

This controversial bestselling novel in the Arab world reveals the political corruption, sexual repression, religious extremism, and modern hopes of Egypt today. All manner of flawed and fragile humanity reside in the Yacoubian Building, a once-elegant temple of Art Deco splendor now slowly decaying in the smog and bustle of downtown Cairo: a fading aristocrat and self-proclaimed "scientist of women"; a sultry, voluptuous siren; a devout young student, feeling the irresistible pull toward fundamentalism; a newspaper editor helplessly in love with a policeman; a corrupt and corpulent politician, twisting the Koran to justify his desires. These disparate lives careen toward an explosive conclusion in Alaa Al Aswany's remarkable international bestseller. Teeming with frank sexuality and heartfelt compassion, this book is an important window on to the experience of loss and love in the Arab world.