Hind, newly arrived in New York with her eight-year-old son, several
suitcases of unfinished manuscripts, and hardly any English, finds a
room in a Brooklyn teeming with people like her who dream of becoming
writers.
As she discovers the various corners of her new home, they conjure up
parallel memories from her childhood and her small Bedouin village in
the Nile Delta: Emilia who sells used shoes at the flea market smells
like Zeinab, the old woman who worked for Hind's grandfather; the
reflection of her own
body as she dances tango awakens the awkwardness of her relationship to
that body across the years; the story of Lilette, the Egyptian
bourgeoise who has lost her memory, prompts Hind to safeguard her own.
Through this kaleidoscopic spectrum of disadvantaged characters we
encounter unique but familiar life histories in this award-winning and
intensely moving novel of displacement and exile. It was the winner of
the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature, and was shortlisted for the
2011 Arabic Booker
prize.