Nancy Roberts is a prize-winning translator with experience in the areas of modern Arabic literature, current events, Christian–Muslim relations and Islamic thought, history and law.
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
Non-fiction
The Art of Forgetting
Fiction
The Bridges of Constantine
Chaos of the Senses
Also available by Ahlem Mosteghanemi
The Bridges of Constantine
Khaled, a former revolutionary in the Algerian war of liberation has been in self-exile in Paris for two decades, disgusted by the corruption that now riddles the country he once fought for. Now a celebrated painter, Khaled is consumed with passion for Hayat, the daughter of his old revolutionary commander, who unexpectedly reenters Khaled’s life. Hayat had been just a child when he last saw her, but she has now become a seductive young novelist.
The first novel in an award-winning, bestselling trilogy that spans Algeria’s tumultuous recent history, The Bridges of Constantine is a lyrical and heartrending love story.
‘A window into a different world’ Daily Mail
‘Remarkably insightful … Astonishingly poetic … I stopped and marvelled every few pages … The Arab-speaking world shouldn’t get to keep Mosteghanemi’s novels all to itself’ Independent on Sunday
‘The tumultuous story of Algeria over the past 50 years, framed by a powerful love story’ The Times
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Chaos of the Senses
In the midst of the Algerian civil war, Hayat is a young novelist trapped in a loveless marriage. While her husband, a high-ranking officer, preoccupies himself with politics, Hayat finds freedom from her highly regimented life in the world of her writing. There she weaves a passionate story for her characters.
But the line between fiction and reality blurs when she falls for a man who seems to have walked straight out of the pages of her notebook, a man who seduces her, instead of her heroine, with his silence.
As love on paper becomes a forbidden love lived out in the dark corners of a broken city, Hayat’s country convulses with political upheaval. In a place where those who dare to write the truth are made to pay a heavy price, she and her characters will discover that no one can truly be the author of their own destiny.
The second novel in the international bestselling trilogy from ‘the literary phenomenon’ (Elle), Ahlem Mosteghanemi, Chaos of the Senses is a powerful story of love, identity and liberation.
‘A novel of swirling, towering emotion’ Independent on Sunday
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The Art of Forgetting
The Art of Forgetting is an elegant and warm-hearted meditation on love, damage, survival and restoration from an exhilarating stylist. As the title suggests, this book offers women advice on how to move beyond the destructive men in their lives and onto a better and more fulfilling existence. Full of wit and warmth, from an author who speaks from her heart and head at one and the same time.
‘For more than a decade, the Algerian writer and novelist Ahlem Mosteghanemi has been the love doctor for females in the Arab world … A heartwarming new book’ The National
‘The most successful woman writer in the Arab world’ Forbes
‘Rather like a box of chocolates to be dipped into; some of its chapters are soft and sweet, others are dark and mysterious, crunchy with a bite, or unexpected like a salted caramel’ Banipal, UK
www.bloomsbury.com/AhlemMosteghanemi
First published in 2009 in Lebanon as Abrir Sarir by Dar al-Adab, Beirut
First published in Great Britain 2016
This electronic edition published in 2016 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Copyright © Ahlem Mosteghanemi, 2016
English translation © Nancy Roberts, 2016
Ahlem Mosteghanemi has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work.
The lines here are taken from Confessions by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, translated by Angela Scholar (2008). Reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press and Oxford University Press, USA.
Every reasonable effort has been made to trace copyright holders of material reproduced in this book, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publishers would be glad to hear from them.
The moral right of the author has been asserted
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eISBN 978 1 4088 6628 3
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