The book provides not only discoveries of important individual artists — such as Bahrain’s Abdul Rahim Sharif and Faisal Samra, Egypt’s Inji Eflatoun who “helped to establish a vigorous avant-garde in her native” country and is in fact but one of many women artists from the region, and Lebanon’s most recent art sensation, Ayman Baalbaki — but shows how artistically vibrant and rich cities like Damascus, Tehran and Iraq continue to be.