The Map of Love - by Ahdaf Soueif (Paperback)

About the Book

At either end of the 20th century, two women fall in love with men outside their familiar worlds. In 1901, Anna Winterbourne finds herself enraptured with Egypt and with Sharif Pasha al-Baroudi. Nearly 100 years later, Isabel Parkman, Anna and Sharif's descendent, is in love with a gifted and difficult Egyptian-American conductor with his own passionate politics.

Book Synopsis

Booker Prize Finalist

Here is an extraordinary cross-cultural love story that unfurls across Egypt, England, and the United States over the course of a century. Isabel Parkman, a divorced American journalist, has fallen in love with a gifted and difficult Egyptian-American conductor. Shadowing her romance is the courtship of her great-grandparents Anna and Sharif nearly one hundred years before.

In 1900 the recently widows Anna Winterbourne left England for Egypt, an outpost of the Empire roiling with political sentiment. She soon found herself enraptured by the real Egypt and in love with Sharif Pasha al-Baroudi, an Egyptian nationalist. When Isabel, in an attempt to discover the truth behind her heritage, reenacts Anna's excursion to Egypt, the story of her great-grandparents unravels before her, revealing startling parallels for her own life.

Combining the romance and intricate narrative of a nineteenth-century novel with a very modern sense of culture and politics--both sexual and international--Ahdaf Soueif has created a thoroughly seductive and mesmerizing tale.

From the Back Cover

With her first novel, In the Eye of the Sun, Ahdaf Soueif garnered comparisons to Tolstoy, Flaubert, and George Eliot. In her latest novel, which was shortlisted for Britain's prestigious Booker Prize, she combines the romantic skill of a nineteenth-century novelist with a very modern sense of culture and politics -- both sexual and international.

In 1901, Anna Winterbourne, recently widowed, leaves England for Egypt, an outpost of the Empire roiling with nationalist sentiment. Far from the comfort of the British colony, she finds herself enraptured by the real Egypt and in love with Sharif Pasha al-Baroudi. Nearly a hundred years later, Isabel Parkman, a divorced American journalist and descendant of Anna and Sharif, has fallen in love with Omar al-Ghamrawi, a gifted and difficult Egyptian-American conductor with his own passionate politics. In an attempt to understand her conflicting emotions and to discover the truth behind her heritage, Isabel, too, travels to Egypt, where she gradually unravels the story of Anna and Sharif's love.

Joining the romance and intricate storytelling of A. S. Byatt's Possession with the lyrical sensuality of Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient, Ahdaf Soueif has once again created a mesmerizing tale.

Review Quotes

"Vivid, passionate and shedding, as true love does, a brilliant, revealing light on the world beyond itself."--The Sunday Telegraph (London)

"Epic. . . . Soueif is at her most eloquent on the subject of her homeland, her prose rich with historical detail and debate. Ultimately, Egypt emerges as the true heroine of this novel."--The Independent (London)

"Ahdaf Soueif has a talent for blending the personal and political and getting under the skin of each one of her characters."--Independent on Sunday (London)

"A magnificent work, reminiscent of Marquez and Allende in its breadth and confidence."--The Guardian

"A bold and vibrant novel. . . . This is political fiction that is also unashamedly romantic--. A triumphant achievement."--Penelope Lively, Literary Review

About the Author

Ahdaf Soueif is the author of two novels, In the Eye of the Sun and The Map of Love, which was short-listed for the Booker Prize in 1999; a story collection, I Think of You; and an essay collection, Mezzaterra: Notes from the Common Ground. She lives in Cairo, where she was born.