Ahdaf Soueif
Paperback | Pages: 529 pages Rating: 3.81 | 5769 Users | 876 Reviews
Describe Out Of Books The Map of Love
| Title | : | The Map of Love |
| Author | : | Ahdaf Soueif |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Deluxe Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 529 pages |
| Published | : | September 12th 2000 by Anchor Books (first published 1999) |
| Categories | : | Fiction. Historical. Historical Fiction. Northern Africa. Egypt. Novels |
Description Toward Books The Map of Love
With her first novel, In the Eye of the Sun, Ahdaf Soueif garnered comparisons to Tolstoy, Flaubert, and George Eliot. In her latest novel, which was shortlisted for Britain's prestigious Booker Prize, she combines the romantic skill of the nineteenth-century novelists with a very modern sense of culture and politics--both sexual and international.At either end of the twentieth century, two women fall in love with men outside their familiar worlds. In 1901, Anna Winterbourne, recently widowed, leaves England for Egypt, an outpost of the Empire roiling with nationalist sentiment. Far from the comfort of the British colony, she finds herself enraptured by the real Egypt and in love with Sharif Pasha al-Baroudi. Nearly a hundred years later, Isabel Parkman, a divorced American journalist and descendant of Anna and Sharif has fallen in love with Omar al-Ghamrawi, a gifted and difficult Egyptian-American conductor with his own passionate politics. In an attempt to understand her conflicting emotions and to discover the truth behind her heritage, Isabel, too, travels to Egypt, and enlists Omar's sister's help in unravelling the story of Anna and Sharif's love.
Joining the romance and intricate storytelling of A.S. Byatt's Possession and Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient, Ahdaf Soueif has once again created a mesmerizing tale of genuine eloquence and lasting importance.
Details Books In Favor Of The Map of Love
| Original Title: | The Map of Love |
| ISBN: | 0385720114 (ISBN13: 9780385720113) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Setting: | Egypt |
| Literary Awards: | Booker Prize Nominee (1999) |
Rating Out Of Books The Map of Love
Ratings: 3.81 From 5769 Users | 876 ReviewsCriticism Out Of Books The Map of Love
I really enjoyed this book. I am partial to multi-character and multi-generational narratives and this novel spans a very interesting part of Egyptian history. Seeing historical events like the Urabi revolt or various developments in Palestine from this fictional, first-person narrative perspective was engaging, though I have to say that some characters gripped me more than others. I found myself looking forward to the sections of Anna's letters (i.e. the earlier historical narrative) as opposedAs Im reading outside my comfort zone this summer, their was inevitably going to be a book that I wouldnt enjoy as much as I hoped.The Map of Love was my pick for Egypt during my #WorldCupInBooks challenge.Told over two time periods during the beginning and the end of the twentieth century, this cross cultural parallel relationships.The book constantly flipped between the two time periods.I thought it was a nice story but it soon got bogged down in political situations at the time.As much as I
Ahdaf Soueif's familiarity with the British sensibility and the Victorian literary style merges almost seamlessly with the Arab tendency to imbue magical/mystical elements into historical accounts and personal storytelling. This novel is balanced in that respect, lacking the sentimentality of other Egyptian writers of fiction. In some instances the editorializing - the commentary on the historical & political situation which seems to be the author's rather than the narrator's view - began to
Ahdaf Soueif presents two tales to provide a bridge across nations and generations. Amal receives a trunk from Isabel a love interest of Amal's brother Omar who resides in New York. She becomes immersed in uncovering the story of Anna an English woman of the early twentieth century which is found in journals in the trunk, one side of which Amal is already familiar with. While making her discoveries in the trunk Amal finds the ties that bound her great uncle are again entrapping her brother. The
The only reason this gets a three is because it was an interesting journey into the world view of another, and I enjoyed it while I was reading it. However, the morning after I finished it, I realized that although the interposition and parallelism of the the past and present was quite well done, the characters were flat. All the protagonists are admirable and all get along famously (including sisters, brothers, and all manner of in-laws); all conflict and pain is caused by the outsiders: the
It's midnight at the Oasis. The air is dry and warm, scented of Jasmine and a beautiful, spunky blonde Englishwoman in drag bewitches the sensitive, progressive Egyptian man in the shadow of the great ruins in one of several highly cinematic encounters written several decades too late for Omar Sharif and Julie Christie to play the protagonists.I didn't hate this book (though it takes several strange, unadvised turns--at least once into a bizarre and unresolved issue of incest), but the framework
I loved this book and I enjoyed reading it so much!, I ranked it as 5 even I know that some parts at the beginning may seem boring or confusing because of the multiple narrators & the jumping through time; back & forward , but indeed once I got caught with the protagonists..I simply loved them ,lived with them and shared their joy & pain!It is a brilliant analysis (political , historical ,economical, cultural & social) of Egypt - who is the actual heroine in my opinion - within
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