Category Archives: Ahdaf Soueif

Soueif, Ahdaf. THE MAP OF LOVE. 2000. Bloomsbury Publishing. London. UK.

This is wonderful sweep of fiction across a century of people and their place in society, war, oppression, and cultural differences in the vast and complex history of North Africa. Its colonial past and the seeds of contemporary violence in Egypt and Palestine are woven into the development of two love stories, one hundred years apart, both highly unconventional for their times. Anna Winterbourne is the widow of a soldier who was emotionally destroyed by his role in the British massacre of Sudan where, “An army of 7000 British and 20000 Egyptian Read more [...]

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Soueif, Ahdaf. MEZZATERRA: Fragments from the Common Ground. 2004. Anchor Books, USA.

The common ground of these essays which span twenty–five years of journalism is the ground where Arabs and non–Arabs co–exist. The author of several novels, including ‘The Map of Love’, which was a Booker Prize finalist, wrote these articles from 1981–2004. She says that they “are the direct product of the interaction between myself and the condition of living in the UK.”. She is keenly aware that the UK and western media present a twisted and biased view of the Arab and Middle Eastern world. She writes that, “It was impossible Read more [...]

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