by Ahdaf Soueif
First published 2007
Anna Winterbourne arrives in Egypt in 1901, a widow seeking escape from Britain's constraints. She discovers a world that captivates her senses and meets Sharif Pasha al-Baroudi, a man whose passion for his homeland matches her growing fascination with Egyptian culture. Nearly a century later, Isabel Parkman, a divorced American journalist, struggles with her feelings for an Egyptian-American conductor whose political convictions create barriers between them. Isabel travels to Egypt to uncover her family history and gradually pieces together Anna and Sharif's forbidden romance. As Isabel excavates the buried truth of their affair, she confronts her own conflicted emotions about love that crosses cultural boundaries. The novel weaves together two women's journeys across time, exploring how personal desires collide with political realities and cultural expectations.
Genres: romance, literary-fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, african-literature, 21st-century
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: cross-cultural-romance, dual-timeline
Setting: Britain, Egypt
Period: 1901, 20th-century
560 pages · Paperback · Bloomsbury Books