LYRICS ALLEY
Leila Aboulela
Set in 1950s Sudan, Lyrics Alley is the story of the powerful and sprawling Abuzied dynasty. With Mahmood Bey at its helm, the family can do no wrong. But when Mahmood's son, Nur—the brilliant, charming heir to his business empire—suffers a near-fatal accident, his hopes of university and a glittering future are dashed. Subsequently, his betrothal to his cousin and sweetheart, Soraya is broken off, another tragedy that he is almost unable to bear. As British rule is coming to an end, and the country is torn between modernising influences and the call of traditions past, the family is divided. Mahmood's second wife, Nabilah, longs to return to Egypt and leave behind her the dust of 'backward-looking' Sudan. His first wife, Waheeba, lives traditionally behind veils and closed doors and resents Nabilah's influence on Mahmood. Meanwhile, Nur must find a way to live again in the world and find peace. Moving from the villages of Sudan to cosmopolitan Cairo and a decimated post-colonial Britain, this is a sweeping tale of loss, faith and reconciliation.
Orion (UK), hardcover, 9780297860099 (December) Grove Press (US), paperback, 9780802119513 (March 2011)
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THE SECRET LIVES OF BABA SEGI'S WIVES
Lola Shoneyin
To the dismay of her ambitious mother, Bolanle marries into a polygamous family, where she is the fourth wife of a rich, rotund patriarch, Baba Segi. She is a graduate and therefore a great prize, but even graduates must produce children and her husband's persistent bellyache is a sign that things are not as they should be. Bolanle is too educated for the 'white garment conmen' Baba Segi would usually go to for fertility advice, so he takes her to hospital to discover the cause of her barrenness. Weaving the voices of Baba Segi and his four competing wives into a portrait of a clamorous household of twelve, Lola Shoneyin evokes an extraordinary Nigerian family in splashes of vibrant colour.
Serpent's Tail, paperback, 9781847652355 William Morrow & Co., hardcover, 9780061946370
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RED WINE
Amina Zaydan
Translated from the Arabic by Sally Gomaa
Suzie Mohammad Galal, born in the Egyptian city of Suez during the War of Attrition in the late 1960s, is a woman of inner conflicts, at once a fighter and a lover, who traverses the boundaries of ethnicity and religion. Her whole life is intricately tied to the wars and political events taking place in Egypt. But as she grapples with where to begin her story of personal and national crises, questions of narration arise: which metaphor best serves the layers of meaning she wants to communicate, and whose voice is telling the story anyway? Red Wine is both timely in its attention to the issues of state brutality, religious extremism, and gender, and timeless in the way it deals with the themes of coming of age, guilt, and sadness.
Amer. Univ. in Cairo Press, hardcover, 9789774163890 (December)
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TO EACH HER OWN
Inji Amr
This is a memoir of six young women living in Egypt, as told by one of them. You may pass by them while walking, sit beside them in a restaurant or even share a cab without even knowing. They are middle class young women in Egypt who have purpose in life and take pride in who they are and what they do. They defy the common stereotypes of Egyptian woman simply by leading normal lives: having hopes, ambitions, problems, challenges and vibrant careers. This book brings a balance missing in Egyptian media: it represents the voice of the eroding middle class, and the dreams and needs of Egyptian women today. Neither sensational nor dramatic, it is simply a book about the intersection of six lives and the importance of friendship among women.
Saray Publishing, paperback, www.saraypublishing.com
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EDEN: A NOVEL
Yael Hedaya
Translated by Jessica Cohen
Eden is no paradise: it is the stifling, rural community in which upscale urban escapees, Alona and Mark, drift apart and divorce under the resentful scrutiny of Roni, Mark's needy adolescent daughter. Against a rich panorama of Eden's oldtimers and newcomers, Mark, an emotionally detached architect, begins an involvement with his ex-wife's best friend, Dafna, who is desperately trying to conceive through the torments of technology, while sixteen-year-old Roni pursues the attention of older men by readily dispensing sexual favors. Over the course of one month, Roni's self-dramatizing turns to tragedy, her parents are jolted out of their absorbing concerns, and a new family structure begins to form out of an unlikely set of characters.
Through a portrait of family entanglements, disappearing countryside, and disappointed expectations, Yael Hedaya, a determinedly plainspoken novelist, has brilliantly mapped the social and emotional ecology of midlife and achieved miracles of insight and understanding.
Metropolitan Books, Hardcover, 9780805092653
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ECHOES FROM THE OTHER LAND: STORIES
Ava Homa
Anis, a computer programmer, is at the end of her rope, putting up with the bullying criticism of a no-good, unemployed lout of a husband; Azar is a young divorcee, and the only person she can talk to is Reza; but she can see him only late at night when "they" are not around; Sharmin has Down syndrome and hopelessly loves Azad; he loves Kazhal, beautiful and blessed; but Kazhal is married off and is divorced at twenty and now awaits a hopeless future …. For these and other characters the weight of traditional attitudes and the harassment of the religious establishment make for a frustrating, confining, and sometimes unlivable existence. Homa's stories evoke the lives of modern women in the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Tsar Publications (CAN), paperback, 9781894770644
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