Ahmad and Nour rent a flat so that they can spend time together away from their families, but is having a space to themselves going to solve all their problems?

Withdrawal, by Syrian writer Mohammad Al Attar, is taken from Plays from the Arab World, a collection of five extraordinary plays exploring and reflecting contemporary life across the Near East and North Africa, now available as individual ebooks.

The full collection also includes:

603 by Imad Farajin (Palestine)Damage by Kamal Khalladi (Morocco)The House by Arzé Khodr (Lebanon)Egyptian Products by Laila Soliman (Egypt)

In 2007 the Royal Court Theatre’s International Department and the British Council embarked on an ambitious project working with twenty-one writers from across the Near East and North Africa. Seven of the resultant plays received rehearsed readings at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in 2008. Plays from the Arab World, introduced by Laila Hourani of the British Council, collects five of these unique new voices, each posing different but equally urgent questions.

Clem Naylor

Book translations