Fractured Destinies
Rabai al-Madhoun
Translated by Paul Starkey
Paperback
Palestinian–Armenian Ivana eloped with a British doctor in the 1940s, in the midst of the Nakba, and emigrated to England. Over half a century later, her daughter Julie has been tasked with Ivana’s dying wish: to take her ashes back to their old home in Acre. She and her husband Walid leave London and embark on a journey to Palestine.
Written in four parts, each as a concerto movement, Rabai al-Madhoun’s pioneering new novel explores Palestinian exile, with all its complex loyalties and identities. Broad in scope and sweeping in its history, it lays bare the tragedy of everyday Palestinian life.
Reviews
"[Fractured Destinies] invents a new fictional form . . . [and] can be considered the complete Palestinian novel."
—Amina Thiban, chair of the panel of judges for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction 2016
Add your own review
Add your review on Goodreads SHARE
Author
Rabai al-Madhoun
Rabai al-Madhoun is a Palestinian writer and journalist, born in al-Majdal, in southern Palestine, in 1945. His family went to Gaza during the Nakba in 1948 and he later studied at Cairo and Alexandria universities, before being expelled from Egypt in 1970 for his political activities. He is the author of the acclaimed The Lady from Tel Aviv, which was shortlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2010, and has worked for a number of Arabic newspapers and magazines, including al-Quds al-Arabi, Al-Hayat, and Al-Sharq Al-Awsat. He currently lives in London, in the UK.
Paul Starkey, professor emeritus of Arabic at Durham University, won the 2015 Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation. He has translated a number of contemporary Arabic writers, including Edwar al-Kharrat, Youssef Rakha, and Mansoura Ez-Eldin.
Find out more- March 27th 2018
- $18.95 / £11.99 / LE200
- Format: Paperback
- ISBN: 9789774168628
Related books
All the Battles
When he first showed up at Captain Ali’s run-down boxing club, Saed was mocked for his bourgeois manners then humiliated in the ring. After barely a year of training, he has been consumed by the world … continued
more >
Gaza Weddings
Twin sisters Randa and Lamis live in the besieged Gaza Strip. Inseparable to the point that even their mother cannot tell them apart, they grow up surrounded by the random carnage that characterizes l … continued
more >
Cigarette Number Seven
As a child, Nadia was left her with her grandparents in Egypt, while her mother sought work in the Gulf. Decades later, she looks back on her fragmented childhood from an uncertain present: it is 2011 … continued
more >