Ezzat El Kamhawi

Winner of the 2012 Naguib Mahfouz Medal, this novel is set in an idyllic Egyptian village from the early nineteenth century to the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. The story opens with Mubarka Badr wanting to dictate a letter to God for her grandson to send to the Almighty by email. We are then ushered back in time to Mubarka's fiery adolescence and her painfully aborted romance with Muntasir. The shifting fortunes of the Deeb clan affect every aspect of...