Hanan Al-Shaykh Boeken

Kamila is nine years old when she is taken from the poverty of her childhood village in southern Lebanon to Beirut. She has never learned to read or write though she longs to go to school. Stories, poetry and film are her passion - and a beautiful boy called Muhammad. They fall in love before Kamila is forced into an arranged marriage, despite her tears and screams. She is only fourteen years old. On her wedding night her first daughter is conceived; four years later, Hanan, their second, is born. Kamila and Muhammad continue to see each other in secret, risking their lives. It is eight years before Kamila can bring herself to divorce her husband, as to do so means leaving her daughters behind. Beautifully evoking the dusty streets of Beirut and life in Lebanon, this is a heartbreaking memoir of an extraordinary woman.

The Arab world's greatest folk stories re-imagined by the acclaimed Lebanese novelist Hanan al-Shaykh.

With the acclaim won by her first two novels, Hanan al-Shaykh established herself as the Arab world's foremost woman writer. Beirut Blues , published to similar acclaim, further confirms her place in Arabic literature, and brings her writing to a new, groundbreaking level.The daring fragmented structure of this epistolary novel mirrors the chaos surrounding the heroine, Asmahan, as she futilely writes letters to her loved ones, to her friends, to Beirut, and to the war itself--letters of lament that are never to be answered except with their own resounding echoes. In Beirut Blues , Hanan al-Shaykh evokes a Beirut that has been seen by few, and that will never be seen again.

"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."-- Back cover

Net voordat het vliegtuig vanuit Dubai op Heathrow landt, komt het toestel in een luchtzak terecht. Vier mensen uit verschillende hoeken van de Arabische wereld maken in de consternatie kennis met elkaar: de mooie, gedoemde Lamies, net gescheiden van haar rijke Irakese echtgenoot; Nicholas, van het veilinghuis Sotheby's; de louche, luidruchtige Amiera en de travestiet Samier, die een kapucijneraapje meesmokkelt. We volgen hen gedurende één hete zomer, waarin ze tegen de problemen aan lopen waar alle immigranten in een grote buitenlandse stad mee te maken krijgen.

Zwei Araberinnen, eine Amerikanerin und eine westlich orientierte Libanesin schildern, wie sie mit den Zwängen der streng patriarchalischen islamischen Gesellschaft umgehen.