NOW THAT WE HAVE TASTED HOPE: Voices from the Arab Spring

SAN FRANCISCO, May 16, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- In 2010, the self-immolation of a produce vendor in Tunisia catalyzed a series of massive democratic revolutions and uprisings throughout the Middle East and North Africa. These events would come to be known as the Arab Spring. In some countries, strongmen who had held power for decades collapsed under the force of youthful popular movements. In others, despots violently and mercilessly clamped down on demonstrators.

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Now That We Have Tasted Hope is a collaboration between San Francisco–based publishers McSweeney's and Byliner Inc. The substantial e-book collects the most important primary source documents from those historic uprisings, telling the story of the Arab Spring from the perspective of those who lived it—men and women, young and old, from all sectors of society: musicians, poets, writers, political activists, actors, labor unionists, journalists, workers, and professionals. Voices from Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Yemen, and Syria provide a comprehensive and captivating narrative of the momentous events of last year. From the harrowing accounts of tortured protesters to the hollow appeals of crumbling regimes and the triumphant songs of revolutionaries, these documents catalog the events of the Arab Spring in all its complexity and drama. They will remain fresh and urgent for a long time to come.

Now That We Have Tasted Hope is edited by Daniel Gumbiner, the associate director of the Zeitoun Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the continued rebuilding and social advancement of New Orleans and to the promotion of understanding between people of disparate faiths around the world. The foreword is written by Diana Abouali, an assistant professor at Dartmouth College, and the introduction is by Elliott Colla, coeditor of the e-magazine Jadaliyya and author of Conflicted Antiquities: Egyptology, Egyptomania, Egyptian Modernity.

McSweeney's is a publishing company based in San Francisco. As well as operating a daily website, it also publishes Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, The Believer, Lucky Peach, Wholphin, Grantland Quarterly, and an ever-growing selection of books under various imprints, including the Voice of Witness series, which uses oral history as a foundation to depict human rights crises around the world. Its nonfiction list ranges from essay collections to war journalism to memoir, and includes Dave Eggers's award-winning Zeitoun, Darin Strauss's National Book Critics Circle Award–winning Half a Life, and William T. Vollmann's epic seven-volume treatise on violence, Rising Up and Rising Down.

Byliner publishes compelling works of original fiction and nonfiction written to be read in a single sitting. Among its bestselling titles are Amy Tan's Rules for Virgins, Jon Krakauer's Three Cups of Deceit, Ann Patchett's The Getaway Car, William T. Vollmann's Into the Forbidden Zone, Elizabeth Kaye's Lifeboat No. 8, and Margaret Atwood's I'm Starved for You. The companion website, Byliner.com, features curated archives of the best fiction and nonfiction writing and allows readers to easily find, share, and buy new and classic stories by their favorite authors.

Now That We Have Tasted Hope is available for $4.99 at Amazon, Apple's iBookstore, Barnesandnoble.com, Kobo, and Google Play.

SOURCE Byliner