Overview

Sara is a philosophy professor at Kuwait University. Her relationship with Kuwait is complicated; it is a country she recognises less and less. Yet since her return from the States eleven years earlier, a certain inertia has kept her there. When she is accused of blasphemy, which carries with it the threat of execution, Sara realises she must reconcile her feelings and her place in the world once and for all. Awaiting trial, Sara retraces the past, intent on examining the lives of the women who made her. She conjures forth her grandmothers - beautiful and stubborn Yasmine, who marries the son of the Pasha of Basra and lives to regret it, and Lulwa, born poor in Kuwait and later swept off to India by her wealthy merchant husband. An Unlasting Home brings to life the triumphs and failures of three generations of Arab women. At once intimate and sweeping, personal and political, it is an unforgettable family portrait and a spellbinding epic tale.

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9780863569272

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Reviews

"""So fresh and unsettling that it will enchant you from the first page and linger for days after reading. ... Deftly written. ... Its epic family saga style echoes that of Hala Alyan’s Salt Houses and The Arsonists’ City, Ayad Akhtar’s Homeland Elegies, and Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko."" Los Angeles Review of Books, ""Grapples profoundly with the limits of individual choice and the hold exerted by a person’s homeland...accomplished and searing."" Publishers Weekly (starred review),""Mai Al-Nakib lyrically explores themes of homeland, tradition and agency as she relates the stories of generations of Arab women across Kuwait, the US, Iraq, India and Lebanon."" Ms. Magazine “Deeply enchanting, at times suspenseful, and always engaging, An Unlasting Home is filled with tales of women’s lives and their intersection with the often volatile and unpredictable currents of nations, war, and political history. Mai Al-Nakib’s storyteller’s voice is fresh and original—her book grabbed me from the outset and kept me entranced to the last page.” Diana Abu-Jaber, author of Fencing with the King and Crescent, “An Unlasting Home is an unforgettable story of people making choices for love, family, freedom, and identity against the tidal forces of history in the Arab region. Shimmering with poetic prose, and as pressingly real as the white heat of August in Baghdad, this poignant debut will keep you in its thrall.” Juhea Kim, author of Beasts of a Little Land, ""An ambitious family epic with a historical sweep, an elegy to grandmothers and mothers who were forced from their original homes by personal or political circumstances in the Middle East to build nests elsewhere."" World Literature Today “A spellbinding family history unfolds as a Kuwaiti woman goes on trial for blasphemy in a world gone mad. Deftly written, structurally brilliant, Mai Al-Nakib’s An Unlasting Home is a lasting novel that splits open time, leaps across continents, and creates the sort of characters we carry forward into our hearts and lives. I absolutely loved this book.” A. Manette Ansay, author of Vinegar Hill, ‘An author already confident in her craft and her ability to give voice to the emotions and yearnings of her characters.’ New Internationalist"

So fresh and unsettling that it will enchant you from the first page and linger for days after reading. ... Deftly written. ... Its epic family saga style echoes that of Hala Alyan's Salt Houses and The Arsonists' City, Ayad Akhtar's Homeland Elegies, and Min Jin Lee's Pachinko. Los Angeles Review of Books, Grapples profoundly with the limits of individual choice and the hold exerted by a person's homeland...accomplished and searing. Publishers Weekly (starred review), Mai Al-Nakib lyrically explores themes of homeland, tradition and agency as she relates the stories of generations of Arab women across Kuwait, the US, Iraq, India and Lebanon. Ms. Magazine Deeply enchanting, at times suspenseful, and always engaging, An Unlasting Home is filled with tales of women's lives and their intersection with the often volatile and unpredictable currents of nations, war, and political history. Mai Al-Nakib's storyteller's voice is fresh and original-her book grabbed me from the outset and kept me entranced to the last page. Diana Abu-Jaber, author of Fencing with the King and Crescent, An Unlasting Home is an unforgettable story of people making choices for love, family, freedom, and identity against the tidal forces of history in the Arab region. Shimmering with poetic prose, and as pressingly real as the white heat of August in Baghdad, this poignant debut will keep you in its thrall. Juhea Kim, author of Beasts of a Little Land, An ambitious family epic with a historical sweep, an elegy to grandmothers and mothers who were forced from their original homes by personal or political circumstances in the Middle East to build nests elsewhere. World Literature Today A spellbinding family history unfolds as a Kuwaiti woman goes on trial for blasphemy in a world gone mad. Deftly written, structurally brilliant, Mai Al-Nakib's An Unlasting Home is a lasting novel that splits open time, leaps across continents, and creates the sort of characters we carry forward into our hearts and lives. I absolutely loved this book. A. Manette Ansay, author of Vinegar Hill, 'An author already confident in her craft and her ability to give voice to the emotions and yearnings of her characters.' New Internationalist

Author Information

Mai Al-Nakib was born in Kuwait and spent the first six years of her life in the UK. She holds a PhD in English from Brown University and is an associate professor of English and comparative literature at Kuwait University, with a special emphasis on gender, cosmopolitanism and postcolonial issues. Her short story collection, The Hidden Light of Objects, won the Edinburgh International Book Festival's First Book Award in 2014. Her stories and essays have been widely published, and she is a frequent contributor to World Literature Today, LA Review of Books and the BBC World Service. She lives in Kuwait and is working on her second novel.

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