After all these years, the eBook version of Ramzi Salti's collection of short stories, The Native Informant and Other Stories is finally available on Google Play and on Kindle.
About the Book
The Native Informant & Other Stories: Six Tales of Defiance from the Arab World is a collection of six short stories dealing with "unmentionable" aspects of Arab life in parts of the Arab world and in the West. Inspired by such modern writers as Alifa Rifaat, Nawal al-Sadawi, and Youssef Idris--authors who have, despite immeasurable odds, managed to emphasize subjects ranging from feminism to postcolonialism in their works--these short stories attempt to further engage various social and political issues that remain, for the most part, largely ignored or silenced in modern Arabic literature.
Most of the stories in The Native Informant & Other Stories operate on a dual level by addressing not only issues related to women, homosexuals, and victims of violence in southwest Asia, but also by examining the seemingly conflicting relationship between notions of Arabness, Islam, and the West. The collection thus aims at highlighting the plight of marginalized groups in Arab countries by broaching various issues on the social spectrum, ranging from religious intolerance, to the subjugation of women, to homophobia, to domestic violence, to Western and Eastern concepts of neo/post coloniality, to the ethnic experience of being an Arab in the United States at a time when the media seems to be promulgating the negative stereotype of the Arab.
Check out the Ebook version on Google Play and on Kindle.
About the Author
Dr. Ramzi Salti was born in Lebanon in 1966. French educated in Beirut, he completed his high school education in Jordan by earning his British G.C.E. and Tawjihi degrees and, in 1983, moved to the United States where he earned his B.A. in French and English (1988) from Santa Clara University and his M.A. (1991) and Ph.D. (1997) in Comparative Literature (Arabic, French, English) from the University of California at Riverside.
Dr. Salti has been a full-time Lecturer in Arabic at Stanford University since 1999 and is a fully Certified ACTFL Oral and Written Proficiency Tester of Arabic. He has also taught a wide array of courses in Arabic Language, Literature and Culture(s) at such institutions as Santa Clara University, U.C. Riverside and Sijal Institute (Jordan). Since 2000, he has continuously organized and emceed various events--at Stanford and elsewhere--that center on various Arabic cultural productions, postcolonial theory, Pop Culture, and the use of technology to enhance language proficiency in the classroom.
In addition to teaching at Stanford, Dr. Salti authors his own blog at www.arabology.org and hosts a popular program titled 'Arabology' which airs on KZSU Stanford 90.1 FM (Podcasts at soundcloud.com/arabology/sets). The program moved to an audio-visual format in 2000 with all episodes now available at youtube.com/RamziSalti.
Salti has amassed several prestigious awards during his years at Stanford, including the Stanford Dean's Award for Distinguished Teaching (2004-5), the ASSU's Honorable Mention for the Teacher of the Year Award (2009) and the Knight Favorite Professor Award by the John S. Knight Fellowships Program for Professional Journalists in 2005, 2009, and 2013. He also received a special award in 2019 for his 20 Years of Academic Service at Stanford.
Over the past two decades, Salti has received multiple grants from the Stanford Arts Institute to bring such Arabic cultural icons as Mashrou Leila's Hamed Sinno, Yasmine Hamdan and Pierre Dulaine to the Stanford campus. He also co-founded the Stanford Middle East Ensemble over a decade ago and has since then organized countless cultural and musical events at Stanford--including Arabic film screenings (ft the Arab Film Festival); cultural workshops at Stanford's Markaz Resource Center; annual audio-visual presentations about Arabic music (by invitation from Stanford Global Studies); and concerts by such iconic/indie musicians as DAM, Omar Offendum, Mike Massy, and "Emel Mathouthi at the Bing" (in conjunction with Stanford Live).
Dr. Salti's collection of short stories, titled The Native Informant & Other Stories: Six Tales of Defiance from the Arab World was published in 1994 to much critical acclaim and he consistently publishes essays and articles in such journals as World Literature Today, The International Fiction Review, The Journal of Arabic Literature, and Notes on Contemporary Literature; he was a also a regular reviewer of Arabic literature for World Literature Today and his Doctoral thesis, which surveys the (mis)representations of marginalized sexualities in Arabic Literature, has been (re)published in various scholarly journals.
In addition to his academic writings, Dr. Salti has worked as an Entertainment writer and has published numerous articles in The Los Angeles Times The West Hollywood Weekly and 4-Front Magazine. He is also an avid Olivia Newton-John biographer, known for his critically acclaimed biography and discography of the late Aussie singer/actress which was published in DISCoveries magazine; he has also interviewed such artists as Debbie Harry (Blondie), academy award winning actress Marlee Matlin, and countless other cultural icons in the US and abroad.
Salti currently resides in the San Francisco Bay area where he devotes his time to public speaking, writing, broadcasting, and teaching at Stanford University.
About the Author
Dr. Ramzi Salti was born in Lebanon in 1966. French educated in Beirut, he completed his high school education in Jordan by earning his British G.C.E. and Tawjihi degrees and, in 1983, moved to the United States where he earned his B.A. in French and English (1988) from Santa Clara University and his M.A. (1991) and Ph.D. (1997) in Comparative Literature (Arabic, French, English) from the University of California at Riverside.
Dr. Salti has been a full-time Lecturer in Arabic at Stanford University since 1999 and is a fully Certified ACTFL Oral and Written Proficiency Tester of Arabic. He has also taught a wide array of courses in Arabic Language, Literature and Culture(s) at such institutions as Santa Clara University, U.C. Riverside and Sijal Institute (Jordan). Since 2000, he has continuously organized and emceed various events--at Stanford and elsewhere--that center on various Arabic cultural productions, postcolonial theory, Pop Culture, and the use of technology to enhance language proficiency in the classroom.
In addition to teaching at Stanford, Dr. Salti authors his own blog at www.arabology.org and hosts a popular program titled 'Arabology' which airs on KZSU Stanford 90.1 FM (Podcasts at soundcloud.com/arabology/sets). The program moved to an audio-visual format in 2000 with all episodes now available at youtube.com/RamziSalti.
Salti has amassed several prestigious awards during his years at Stanford, including the Stanford Dean's Award for Distinguished Teaching (2004-5), the ASSU's Honorable Mention for the Teacher of the Year Award (2009) and the Knight Favorite Professor Award by the John S. Knight Fellowships Program for Professional Journalists in 2005, 2009, and 2013. He also received a special award in 2019 for his 20 Years of Academic Service at Stanford.
Over the past two decades, Salti has received multiple grants from the Stanford Arts Institute to bring such Arabic cultural icons as Mashrou Leila's Hamed Sinno, Yasmine Hamdan and Pierre Dulaine to the Stanford campus. He also co-founded the Stanford Middle East Ensemble over a decade ago and has since then organized countless cultural and musical events at Stanford--including Arabic film screenings (ft the Arab Film Festival); cultural workshops at Stanford's Markaz Resource Center; annual audio-visual presentations about Arabic music (by invitation from Stanford Global Studies); and concerts by such iconic/indie musicians as DAM, Omar Offendum, Mike Massy, and "Emel Mathouthi at the Bing" (in conjunction with Stanford Live).
Dr. Salti's collection of short stories, titled The Native Informant & Other Stories: Six Tales of Defiance from the Arab World was published in 1994 to much critical acclaim and he consistently publishes essays and articles in such journals as World Literature Today, The International Fiction Review, The Journal of Arabic Literature, and Notes on Contemporary Literature; he was a also a regular reviewer of Arabic literature for World Literature Today and his Doctoral thesis, which surveys the (mis)representations of marginalized sexualities in Arabic Literature, has been (re)published in various scholarly journals.
In addition to his academic writings, Dr. Salti has worked as an Entertainment writer and has published numerous articles in The Los Angeles Times The West Hollywood Weekly and 4-Front Magazine. He is also an avid Olivia Newton-John biographer, known for his critically acclaimed biography and discography of the late Aussie singer/actress which was published in DISCoveries magazine; he has also interviewed such artists as Debbie Harry (Blondie), academy award winning actress Marlee Matlin, and countless other cultural icons in the US and abroad.
Salti currently resides in the San Francisco Bay area where he devotes his time to public speaking, writing, broadcasting, and teaching at Stanford University.
Check out the Ebook version on Google Play and on Kindle.
