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The Smiles of the Saints:
Ibrahim Farghali (Author), Andy Smart (Translator), Nadia Fouda-Smart (Translator)
Told through the
voices of a group of close friends and spanning a
generation, Smiles of the Saints is an epic story
condensed into a short, intricate novel.
Twenty-year-old Hanin has just returned to Egypt
after an absence of fifteen years spent mostly in a
Parisian boarding school, cut off from all family
save for sporadic visits from her father, Rami. She
has been summoned back by her fathers twin sister,
who gives her an envelope containing his diaries,
the last section of which is missing. Reading Ramis
account of the passionate love affairs and tortured
spiritual adventures of his youth, Hanin begins to
unravel the riddle of a family she has barely known.
Herself the child of a Muslim-Christian marriage,
Hanin, in love with a Jewish man, is considering
adding a further religious dimension to her family.
But someone is carefully watching the proceedings a
figure from the past who was once deeply involved
with Hanins family. Who exactly is this, and what
stake does he have in Hanins return?
Couched in a pervasive air of mystery, Ibrahim
Farghalis novel is ripe with resonant observations
on the complexities of human entanglements.
About the Author
IBRAHIM FARGHALI was born in Mansoura in the Nile
Delta in 1967, and grew up in Oman and the United
Arab Emirates. He has written two collections of
short stories and two novels. He is a journalist
with the Cairo daily newspaper al-Ahram.
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Feuillles de
narcisse (Broché) de Somaya
Ramadan (en Francais)
Une jeune Egyptienne partie étudier en Irlande sombre rapidement dans la
"folie". Mais l'exil de l'héroïne est intérieur autant que physique et son
sentiment d'étrangeté aussi vif ici que là-bas. Dès l'enfance, dans une famille
bourgeoise et feutrée, Kimi est hantée par la peur de ne pas savoir se tenir
dans les cadres du conte de fées que l'on a soigneusement tracés pour elle. Avec
le temps et la distance, le fossé se creuse entre elle et son monde "familier",
entre les attentes de son entourage et ce qu'elle est devenue... Quand elle
finit par rentrer chez elle, sa mère, lointaine, comme retranchée derrière une
paroi de verre, refuse de voir la dérive cauchemardesque de sa fille. Seule
Amna, la nourrice que l'on dit "stupide" et "têtue comme une mule", a gardé un
lien d'intimité avec elle. Analphabète, elle lui tend la clef d'une autre
mythologie, orale et populaire, qu'elle fiait résonner avec les mythes grecs et
la littérature irlandaise, britannique ou autres, dont elle est pétrie. Le roman
s'ouvre et se termine par l'expression "peut-être", qui ponctue aussi le fil
éclaté de la narration : une multitude de points de vue, de séquences et de
flash-back disloqués qui s'entrecroisent, comme autant de fragments de feuilles
écrites, déchirées, récrites..
This book was our readers club selection for June 2002. For more information on
the book and its author go to:
http://www.arabworldbooks.com/Readers2002/june.htm |
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Layla, An Egyptian Woman
by Fawzia Assaad,
Melissa Marcus (Translator) Price: $16.96 Click on title to buy
A somewhat autobiographical novel about a Christian Coptic girl
growing up inCairo and her family spanning the British occupation to
the Arab Israeli War.
This novel features several women characters from different
backgrounds andportrays their traditions and their urge for
change.The images of the past arecaught in everyday's life, the
ancient myth of the Enemy brothers perpetuatesitself throughout the
dramatic events of the Arab Israeli war narrated withthat Egyptian
brand of humour that heals the wounds of repeated occupations.
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The Lives Of Rain
by Nathalie Handal
Shortlisted for the Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize/Pitt Poetry Series.
Foreword by Carolyn Forche Price: $10.20 Click on title to buy
The Lives of Rain is a book of exile and wandering, geographically and
emotionally. In it are wars, loves, scars, ancestors. In it are olive trees,
lemon trees, weddings, music, fear. In it are English, French, Arabic, Spanish,
“the breath of cities,” the blue hour of a woman's body. Nathalie Handal is a
poet for our time of crisis and need, for our awakening sense of the battles of
eros and thanatos in our world.
From the Foreword by Carolyn Forche
"In The Lives of Rain, Nathalie Handal has brought forth a work of radical
displacement and uncertainty, moving continent to continent, giving voice to
Palestinians of the diaspora in the utterance of one fiercely awake and
compassionate, who, against warfare, occupation and brutality offers her native
language, olives, wind, a herd of sheep or a burning mountain, radio music, a
butterfly's gaze...Handal is a poet of deftly considered paradoxes and
reversals, sensory evocations and mysteries left beautifully unresolved. Hers is
a language seared by history and marked by the impress of extremity; so it is
suffused with a rare species of wisdom." |
© Arab World Books |
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