The Cry of the Dove
A Novel
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
An “exquisitely woven” novel of love, exile, and violated honor among a Bedouin tribe from the Jordanian-British author and human rights activist (Leila Aboulela).
Salma has committed a crime considered punishable by death among her Bedouin tribe of Hima in the Levant: she had sex out of wedlock and became pregnant. When Salma gives birth to the child, she suddenly finds herself a fugitive on the run from those seeking to restore their honor.
Though she is placed in protective custody, Salma’s newborn child is ripped from her arms upon arrival. Devastated and disowned, she endures years of isolation before she is ushered to safety in Exeter, England, where she faces a new set of social pressures and expectations. With the help of an elderly English landlady and a Pakistani girl on the run from an arranged marriage, Salma is finally able to forge a new identity.
But just as she settles into her new life, the need to return for her lost daughter overwhelms her, and one fateful day, Salma goes back to her village to find the girl. It is a journey that risks everything.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Faqir's haunting, fragmented third novel (following Pillars of Salt), Bedouin teenager Salma Ibrahim El-Musa has become Sally Ascher, longing to fit in to her adopted rural Devon, England. As the novel unfolds in retrospect, Salma becomes pregnant by her lover, Hamdan, who repudiates her. Under threat of an honor killing at the hands of her family and tribe, Salma is put in protective prison custody, where her newborn daughter, Layla, is taken from her; she then escapes, with her family in pursuit. The story of Salma's flight alternates with her emigre travails, where she cruises bars, hopelessly picking up men: seeking human connection, self-inflicted punishment, and escape from the pain of being separated from Layla. Always Salma sees, lurking in the shadows, the figure of her brother, Mahmoud, coming to "shoot her between the eyes." Faqir skillfully weaves together the strands of Salma's life, and movingly follows her torturous path to asylum, and to her adult self and life.
