The great English novel about Egypt, which is also the great Egyptian novel about England.
This is a love story, a story about growing up, a story about what its like to be a woman (Eastern and Western), a story about the history of the post-imperial Middle East during the last 30 years or so, perplexed and bloody years, and a story about home.
In London in 1979, Asya reflects on events in Cairo more than a decade before. It''s May, 1967: Asya''s studying for university is interrupted by war between Israel and Egypt, a conflict that shapes Asya''s coming of age as a woman in modern Egypt. For Asya, education, love, sexuality and marriage are bound up with, and touched by, the violent conflicts between Egypt and Israel -as well as the seductions, and disappointments, of Europe.
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''Ahdaf Soueif is one of the most extraordinary chroniclers of sexual politics now writing'' EDWARD SAID, author of Orientialism
''A convincing and skilful writer'' SUNDAY TIMES
''Highly unusual and richly impressive'' GUARDIAN
