Happiness in the Lion’s Mouth
About the vastness of life in a narrow world
Nabila and Ali have been married for 45 years. But when Fairuz’ love songs on the radio float through her kitchen window, Nabila doesn’t think about her husband but about her first love, a Syrian migrant worker, who hid letters to her inside a hollowed-out courgette. Even though she didn’t leave her Druze mountain village and leave with him at the time, a deep longing for him has been burning in her heart ever since.
Now that her daughters have left home and silence has set in, Nabila is feeling the old longing again. One day she sends Ali a message on Facebook. He doesn’t recognise the woman behind the pseudonym and she doesn’t let on, so a long and surprising conversation unfolds.
With humour and heart, Haneen Al-Sayegh sensitively writes about the intensity of a seemingly silent existence.
- A touching tale of a strong-willed woman holding on to her inner independence in a traditional world
- Haneen Al-Sayegh is an upcoming, award-winning author in the Arab world
Haneen Al-Sayegh, born in 1986 in Mount Lebanon, studied English Literature at the American Unicersity of Beirut and works as a lecturer and translator. She has published three poetry books and was awarded the prestigious Naji Naaman Literary Award. Her debut novel ›Daughters of the Same Secret‹ was shortlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction. She lives in Beirut and Berlin.
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Hamed Abdel-Samad studied English, French, Japanese and Political Science. He has worked for UNESCO and held a professorship in Islamic Studies at the University of Erfurt and at the Institute for Jewish History and Culture at the University of Munich. Abdel-Samad is one of the most profiled Islamic intellectuals in the German-speaking world. As a result of his taboo-breaking autobiography an official fatwa was placed on him in 2013. Since then, he has lived under permanent police protection.
.jpg "Hamed Abdel-Samad")
