Publisher's Synopsis
The eloquent, lyric voice of the Arab world's foremost woman novelist conjures up a woman's life and loves in a war-torn city. Asmahan, a young Lebanese woman, writes a series of letters in an attempt to make sense of her life and the war in Beirut, and to preserve her images of the pre-war city. Vividly, passionately, and yet with clear-sighted humour, she records the astonishing details of her existence, her feelings about lovers past and present, her reactions to the war and its violent social and political upheavals, and her relationships with the other women around her. What emerges is an intimate, engaging portrait and a delicately interwoven pattern of events and characters. This is the kind of essential fiction which reveals to us the details and preoccupations of life in another country, while also illuminating unforgettably the universal issues of love, gender and the tragedy of war.
