"Surveying what appears as familiar ground, Hedy Habra's Flying Carpets plunge deep into the bygone and the irrecoverable. Steeped in childhood memories of Egypt and Lebanon, and intensified in the act of fictional recollection, Habra's stories are joyous and tragic at once, witty and profound. In Habra we have a Sheherazad of our times, not one trying to save her life, but one intent on bringing enchantment, gravitas, and sensitivity to ours. This is a book full of marvels, beautifully written."

– Khaled Mattawa, author of Amorisco and Tocqueville

"Hedy Habra's Flying Carpets is a collection of enchantments and wonders charmingly recounted, deeply imagined, and composed with lyrical exactitude. It belongs to that rare tradition of books whose spells grow increasingly seductive with each new story."

– Stuart Dybek, author of Coast of Chicago and Sailing With Magellan

"Hedy Habra's moving, lovely stories emerge from her history as a Middle Eastern writer exposed to the varied cultures of Egypt, Lebanon, Belgium, Greece, and the United States, fluent in French, Arabic, Spanish and English. She draws together in this volume vivid images, events, and voices in a compelling, parti-colored vision that evokes time and place like the haunting recollections from a dream."

– Arnold Johnston, author of The Witching Voice: A Novel from the Life of Robert Burns and What the Earth Taught Us (poems)