Kirjahaku

The story of one woman's passionate odyssey and sophisticated fantasy of Arabia, ancient and modern. "There was a blue cast to Satjma's handsomely sculpted mesmerizing tale of earthbound witchery and celestial love."Fatma, an Arabian peasant girl, unwittingly embarks upon a strange journey of transformation the day her father marries her off to a snake handler. Unbeknownst to the new bride, her husband milks the venom of his snakes for use in potions he sells on the side. Bitten by one of the snakes, Fatma changes from naive girl to sensuous woman. What's more, she now gains an arcane affinity for her husband's reptiles as well as a talent for controlling them. This trait will enable her to travel from the sands of Arabia to the shadows of the Netherworld beyond the realm of ordinary human experience.Resonating with ritual and mystery, Fatma is a fabulous tale of one woman's path to ecstasy - an enraptured vision of enchantment in this world and fulfillment in another. The first novel to be published in English by one of the most distinguished of modern Arabic writers, this imaginative work blends naturalistic prose, poetry, and song with all the magic of its author's abundant literary gifts.

The story of one woman's passionate odyssey and sophisticated fantasy of Arabia, ancient and modern.

The distinguished Middle Eastern author Raja Alem grew up in Mecca at a time when the holy city was on the cusp of transformation from medieval to modern. In this vanished Mecca, vividly brought to life again in ""My Thousand and One Nights"", women hold center stage - especially Jummo, the wildly passionate daughter of the Water Carriers' Sheik. This faraway time and setting become compellingly real through the intimate drama of Jummo's life, the tragic arc of her affair with her childhood sweetheart and her lifelong love for the mysterious Sidi Wadhana, a more-than-human emissary from the Netherworld. Jummo's world, veiled and invisible to outsiders until this telling of her story, has the feel of the true center of an Arabia that has come to us in many exotic and threatening guises. ""Jummo's Mecca"" is a different world, with different narrative strategies, but her dramatic problems are universal: how lethal is love, how dangerous is woman? And how sensual is the yearning for immortality?

November 1979. Violence has broken out in the holiest site of Islam after a charismatic rebel and his devoted followers have announced the coming of the Mahdi and seized the Grand Mosque in Mecca. Among the insurgents is a young woman, Sarab, disguised as a man. As the horror and chaos of the siege reach their peak, she escapes and encounters a French officer from the opposing side. They form an unexpected bond, as hostility turns to attraction, but the violence of both of their pasts will return to haunt them. Award-winning writer Raja Alem’s extraordinary narrative stretches from Saudi Arabia’s Najd desert to the heart of Paris. In her typical bold and captivating style, this most unusual of love stories unpicks faith and fanaticism, alienation and redemption, and ultimately what it means to be human.