“Coming from the same generation as the author, and also powerfully influenced and affected by the worldwide social changes of the ‘60s, I welcome this novel as a heartfelt salutation to women who struggled to change society’s traditional views of women’s so-called “place” in the world, as well as a reminder to others to keep on doing that.”
“The struggle to be an independent woman living a fulfilled life in a world that doesn’t really care what happens to her is rendered with sharp-eyed clarity and unnerving charm in this novel by leading Syrian author Ghada Samman.”
The book opens as Zain Khayyal, a university student and aspiring young writer, plots an early-morning escape from her house as her husband slumbers.
Her mission: to get an illicit abortion, plans for which she’s divulged to no one, and to announce that she wants out of her stifling marriage. A rebel and a trail-blazer par excellence, Zain draws down the wrath of polite society and the authorities, political and religious alike, as she challenges attitudes and practices that demean rather than dignify, and a ruling regime that sucks the life out of both oppressed and oppressor.
As the plot unfolds, Zain finds her way as a student to a neighbouring country which, though it grants her the freedom, respect and appreciation she had lacked in her homeland, becomes a place of anguished exile.
Published by Darf in October 2017
Translated from Arabic by Nanacy Roberts
ISBN: 9781850772958
Format: Paperback
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