The lowest-priced brand-new, unused, unopened, undamaged item in its original packaging (where packaging is applicable).Packaging should be the same as what is found in a retail store, unless the item is handmade or was packaged by the manufacturer in non-retail packaging, such as an unprinted box or plastic bag.See details for additional description.
$16.93
Free Shipping
List price $17.99Save 5%
What does this price mean?
This is the price (excluding shipping and handling fees) a seller has provided at which the same item, or one that is nearly identical to it, is being offered for sale or has been offered for sale in the recent past. The price may be the seller's own price elsewhere or another seller's price. The "off" amount and percentage simply signifies the calculated difference between the seller-provided price for the item elsewhere and the seller's price on eBay. If you have any questions related to the pricing and/or discount offered in a particular listing, please contact the seller for that listing.
Get it by Fri, Jun 17 - Wed, Jun 29 from Botany, NSW
• Brand New condition
• 30 day returns - Buyer pays return shipping
"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.". --"The Guardian""A bold and vibrant novel--.
The Map of Love is the story of two stories- two stories separated by a hundred years of history, two stories intricately intertwined. There is the story of Lady Anna Winterbourne who, recently widowed, travels to the Middle East in 1900. In Egypt Anna meet Sharif al-Barudi, an Egyptian Nationalist, high-born and utterly committed to his country's cause. For Sharif, Anna at first represents the pseudo-benign snobberies and vulgarities of colonialist Britain. For her, Sharif stand for the real, secret Egypt - an Egypt entirely hidden from her incurious expat. compatriots. The couple fall in love, but fearfully. Can such a love survive? They marry, but can Anna really turn herself into an Oriental wife? Can Sharif adjust to Anna's Englishness? And will the real world, the unloving world of history and politics, give them a chance to try? These questions arise naturally from the telling of their hundred-year-old narrative, but they are questions which, we learn, have a powerful present-tense significance for the heroine of the book's second story- the story of Isabel Parkman, an American divorcee and a descendant of Anna and Sharif. In 1997, Isabel meets and falls in love with Omar-al-Ghamrawi, a New York based Egyptian who also has blood-links to the Anna/Sharif marriage. What to do? Isabel decides to make a trip to Egypt. She is looking for an answer to questions she has scarcely framed, as yet. She carries with her an old family trunk, which she delivers to Omar's sister, Amal, who still lives in Cairo. In this trunk, when Amal unpacks it, are found the notebooks and journals to which Anna, one hundred years before, confided the story of her love affair with Sharif, her love affair with Egypt. And there are other relics- not least the observations of Sharif's sister, Layla. Amal pieces the story together for Isabel, and for us. Where there are gaps, she tries to fill them in, by first-hand research or by sympathetic guess-work. And as the old tale unfolds, so it invests the new tale, Isabel's tale, with a range of fresh complexities and depths. Are the two tales one? For Egypt, and for cross-cultural marriages, a lot has changed since 1900. On the other hand, so much has stayed the same. Egypt now, Isabel finds out, is born of Egypt then. Ancestry is more than just a family affair.
Product Identifiers
Publisher
Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN-10
0747545634
ISBN-13
9780747545637
eBay Product ID (ePID)
1614863
Product Key Features
Book Title
Map of Love
Author
Ahdaf Soueif
Format
Trade Paperback
Language
English
Topic
Sagas, General, Historical
Publication Year
2000
Genre
Fiction
Number of Pages
320 Pages
Dimensions
Item Length
7.7in.
Item Height
1.1in.
Item Width
5.1in.
Item Weight
12.7 Oz
Additional Product Features
Lc Classification Number
Pr6069.O78m37 2000
Reviews
"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
