Like Alexander the Great, the U.S. president wanted to sever the Gordian knot of power dynamics in the Middle East. His sword was not sharp enough. Vali Nasr’s "Iran’s Grand Strategy" explains the background.

Set against the backdrop of a neonatal intensive care unit, dating apps, and the threat of war, Leh-Wei Liao’s 'Glaszeit' (The Age of Glass) tells the story of bodies and life paths that defy their supposed identities

Cynical to the point of being unbearable: In Tony Tulathimutte’s multi-award-winning collection of short stories, "Rejection", the outsiders among the millennials raise their (literary) voices

In 'Leila & Khaled', Nyla Matuk tells not only of a return to Palestine, but also of the impossibility of escaping the images shaped by her own Western socialisation

Refineries, a curse, and black gold. Workers, legends, petroleum. Nastaran Makaremi’s novel "Total" revolves around oil. And then becomes part of its next transformation.

Ethnologist Heike Behrend is researching a German provincial prophet who ran a commercial "Garden of Paradise" in the Altmark region in the early 20th century