Aunt Safiyya and the Monastery

Translated from the Arabic by Barbara Romaine This novel "is set 30 years ago in a village outside Luxor. . . . Safiyya, the narrator's aunt, is an orphan girl who was taken in by his parents and brought up by them. It is taken for granted that . . . she will marry Harbi, a handsome and agreeable young relative. . . . {However}, the local bey--a man in his 60's, of wealth and prestige--asks to marry her. Safiyya acquiesces. . . . {She later} bears the bey a son. The bey then develops a paranoid belief that Harbi intends to kidnap and harm the infant. He brings hired thugs to the village to torture Harbi, {who} . . . manages to break free and shoot the bey. . . . {Following the village custom of the blood feud}, Safiyya must raise her son in the expectation that he will in due course avenge his father bykilling Harbi." (N Y Times Book Rev)