This book gives due respect to modern and contemporary novels, both in English and Arabic. It studies how some writes are imprisoned, oppressed and sometimes raped by despots, either within the confines of prisons or outside them. It also studies Radwa Ashour's Atyaf/Specters as an Egyptian campus novel, and how far the political, social and economical conditions have negatively affected such academic life. Moreover, it discusses assimilation in Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient (1992) as a journey for self-discovery. Some of Margaret Atwood's novels are illuminated from a postcolonial perspective. Finally, Leila Aboulela's Minaret deconstructs stereotypes about religion and the Mashriq (East) respectively.