Four Palestinian men share a cramped prison cell listening to the buses come and go outside. Will the next bus be the one to take them home?

603, by Palestinian writer by Imad Farajin, is taken from Plays from the Arab World, a collection of five extraordinary plays exploring and reflecting contemporary life across the Near East and North Africa, now available as individual ebooks.

The full collection also includes:

- Withdrawal by Mohammad Al Attar (Syria)

- Damage by Kamal Khalladi (Morocco)

- The House by Arzé Khodr (Lebanon)

- Egyptian Products by Laila Soliman (Egypt)

In 2007 the Royal Court Theatre's International Department and the British Council embarked on an ambitious project working with twenty-one writers from across the Near East and North Africa. Seven of the resultant plays received rehearsed readings at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in 2008. Plays from the Arab World, introduced by Laila Hourani of the British Council, collects five of these unique new voices, each posing different but equally urgent questions.