The countries stretching along the wide horizons of the Middle East—from Morocco to Iran, from Turkey to Pakistan—proudly boast different cultures, languages, and religions. However, the literary landscape of this dynamic part of the world has united not through borders and ethnicities, but through a shared experience of Western imperialism. Recognized author Reza Aslan, along with a team of four regional editors and seventy-seven translators, highlights in Tablet and Pen how literature can be used to shape identities and serve as a significant record of the region’s tumultuous stories.

Acting with Words Without Borders, which promotes international exchange through translation and publication of the world's leading literature, Aslan intentionally places this volume in the twentieth century, beyond the familiar boundaries of the Ottoman past. He believes that writers who have emerged over the last hundred years have not received proper recognition. This monumental collection, therefore, includes nearly two hundred works, such as short stories, novels, memoirs, essays, and plays—many of which are presented in English for the first time.

Organized chronologically, the collection spans a century of literature—from the famous Arab poet Kahlil Gibran to Nobel laureates Naguib Mahfouz and Orhan Pamuk, from the great Syrian-Lebanese poet Adonis to the distinguished Urdu fiction writer Ismat Chughtai—connected by the exceptionally rich tradition of brilliant cultures often overlooked by Western discourse. Highlighting America’s perceptions of the Middle East away from religion and politics, Tablet and Pen brings to light the brilliance of the region through the voices of its writers and poets, whose literature tells a compelling and liberating story.

With a wealth of contextual information placing writing within the region’s historical, political, and cultural landscape, Tablet and Pen is transcendent—a book to be consumed as a continuous narrative, from the first page to the last. Creating a vital bridge between two often disconnected cultures, "this is the rare anthology: cohesive, moving, and informative" (Publishers Weekly). It includes writings by Kahlil Gibran, Tawfiq al-Hakim, Nâzim Hikmet, Ismat Chughtai, Muhammad Iqbal, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Forugh Farrokhzad, Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar, Yasar Kemal, Ghassan Kanafani, Mahmoud Darwish, Adonis, Ahmad Shamloo, Naguib Mahfouz, Orhan Pamuk, and others.