The Map of Love: A Novel [B1823]

2000 PB in nice clean condition. Booker Prize Finalist. Here is an extraordinary cross-cultural love story that unfurls across Egypt, England, and the United States over the course of a century. Isabel Parkman, a divorced American journalist, has fallen in love with a gifted and difficult Egyptian-American conductor. Shadowing her romance is the courtship of her great-grandparents Anna and Sharif nearly one hundred years before. In 1900 the recently widowed Anna Winterbourne left England for Egypt, an outpost of the Empire roiling with political sentiment. She soon found herself enraptured by the real Egypt and in love with Sharif Pasha al-Baroudi, an Egyptian nationalist. When Isabel, in an attempt to discover the truth behind her heritage, reenacts Anna's excursion to Egypt, the story of her great-grandparents unravels before her, revealing startling parallels for her own life. Combining the romance and intricate narrative of a nineteenth-century novel with a very modern sense of culture and politics-both sexual and international-Ahdaf Soueif has created a thoroughly seductive and mesmerizing tale.

From recent Amazon/GoodReads reviews: "Stunning book. Really unique use of an intergenerational story, blending history and fiction into a powerful novel. The similarities and differences between the Egyptian experience at the turn of the 20th and the 21st centuries are striking. The characters are beautifully real, their relationships integral. Loved this book."; "Now I want to visit Egypt . Fascinating book, really good read."; "It was not an easy read but I learned a lot about the British occupation of Egypt and the struggles of the people there to hold their culture while forging global allegiances. The ottomans, Europe and Palestine all featured in the novel, told through generations of intercultural love stories, but the sad part is that the same struggles feature today."