“The corruption in Iraq has nothing to do with ideas - it has to do with the regime and institutional structures and power.” Quote by Elliott Colla
“There's actually a lot of information on a lot of people and that is a major achievement of a police state.” PeopleStatesInformationAchievementMajorsPolicePolice State Author:Elliott Colla
“Palestinian society is filled with poetry, but not experimental poetry. The Palestinian poetry that people know is not the modernist experimentations, it's certain kinds of poetry that lends itself to recitation and song and things like that.” PeopleKnowsKindCertainSongFilledPalestinianExperimentationRecitation Author:Elliott Colla
“It does not take much to imagine the humanity of people you don't know.” PeopleKnowsDoeHumanityImagine Author:Elliott Colla
“In a couple of Ahdaf Soueif's novels, she gets at the certain kind of English that's being spoken by Egyptians. It's a beautiful, expressive English but it is non-standard, "broken" English that happens to be efficient, eloquent, and communicates perfectly well even if it is breaking rules.” IfsWellsKindHappensBeautifulCertainNovelBrokenCoupleStandardsCommunicateEfficientEloquentExpressiveBreaking RulesBroken English Author:Elliott Colla
“Arabs don't do crime fiction. I read crime fiction and I read Arabic literature, and I wish this was a novel I could have read in Arabic.” LiteratureWishFictionNovelCrimeCrime Fiction Author:Elliott Colla
“Why is thinking about crime or imagining crime so goddamn central to pop culture? It doesn't matter whether it's American TV or British TV. And there's entire sections of bookstores devoted to crime.” ThinkingMatterCultureCrimeTvsPopsBritishDevotedSectionsPop CultureBookstores Author:Elliott Colla
“There are certainly times in history where power associates itself closely with fields that we would call the humanities, like rulers surrounding themselves with philosophers and poets, or playwrights. We do not live in that moment, and the best way to gauge the proximity of an academic field to power is by salary.” WayMomentsHumanityFieldsPoetPhilosopherBest WayThat MomentAcademicRulersAssociatesSalaryPlaywrightProximityGauges Author:Elliott Colla
“We like to look out on the world and see ourselves, so we have many, many novels, memoirs, and short stories in Iraq that are largely about Americans in Iraq, doing what Americans do.” WorldLooksStoriesNovelIraqMemoirShort Story Author:Elliott Colla
“Translated books rarely get reviewed in the press. Books or poems or works of art that don't seem to have a corresponding style or figure or theme, obviously they're hard to digest.” ArtBookHardSeemsStyleFiguresPressesThemeWorks Of ArtCorresponding Author:Elliott Colla
“We are living in a time when American popular music is finally being recognized as one of our most successful exports. The demand is huge.” SuccessfulHugeDemandMusic IsPopular Music Author:Billy Joel