In this explosive, captivating portrait of life in a war zone, two young men must choose their futures: to stay in the war-torn Beirut and consolidate power through crime, or to go into exile abroad, alienated from the only existence they have known.
On a sunny beach on the Italian Riviera, two thirtysomething women, Yvonne and Huda, relax by the sparkling sea. But despite the setting, as their vacation unfolds, their complicated pasts seep through to the idyllic present. Both women spent their childhoods in Lebanon—Yvonne raised in a Christian family, Huda in a Muslim one—and they now find themselves torn between the traditional worlds they were born into and the successful professional identities they’ve created. Three months later, when Huda (a theater director from Toronto) visits Yvonne (an advertising executive) in London, a chance e... continue
Flight against time is a moving story about the immigrant experience. An elderly couple leaves their village in Lebanon to visit their children and grandchildren now living in the new world: Prince Edward Island, Canada. They find a world of peace and great comfort, but despite the war back home, the old man longs for his small village and a way of life deeply etched in his heart.Nasrallah skillfully weaves truth and imagination to create a story rich in human emotion and psychological insight. The novel stands as witness to a time and its people, a mirror of the whole culture and historical m... continue
Little is known of what life is like for contemporary Arab women living in the Middle East. One of the few literary voices speaking out from that still closed society is Hanan al-Shaykh, whose novel The Story of Zahra was banned in most Arab countries. Now available for the first time in the U.S. is her newest novel, a story of four women treated to every luxury but freedom.
Translated from the French by Georgina Kleege. SITT MARIE ROSE, an SPD bestseller, is the story of a woman abducted by militiamen during the civil war in Lebanon. Already a classic of war literature, it won the France-Pays Arabes award in Paris and has been translated into six languages. Fiction.