The Map of Love by Ahdaf Soueif

The Map of Love

Ahdaf Soueif

Totally absorbing. If you let it, this book will take you to Egypt in 1900. At the same time, modern events in the middle east take place in the context of their history. If you like romance you'll find it here but if you like gritty realism and politics you'll find that too.

Extract
16 March 1901.

Tonight we are camped a single day's ride from the Monastery of St. Catherine and in full view of the mountains of Sinai. We rode, Sharif Pasha and I through the most spectacular pass, called the Nugh Hawa, so precipitous and narrow that camels cannot go through it but have to be sent the wider and more level route through Darb-el-Sheik. Sharif Pasha put the question to me: would I prefer the spectacular route or the easier one? And naturally I chose the first. He said, 'It can be done on horseback.' And since we have only two horses, we would have to go alone.

Parallels
  • The Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell
  • The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
  • Whispers in the Sand by Barbara Erskine
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Explicit sexual Content