Around the World in 80 Books discussion

Start discussion here for The Cry of the Dove by Fadia Faqir.

About the Book

Timely and lyrical, The Cry of the Dove is the story of one young woman and an evocative portrait of forbidden love and violated honor in a culture whose reverberations are felt profoundly in our world today. Salma has committed a crime punishable by death in her Bedouin tribe of Hima, Levant: she had sex out of wedlock and became pregnant. Despite the insult it would commit against her people, Salma has the child and suddenly finds herself a fugitive on the run from those seeking to restore their honor. Salma is rushed into protective custody where her newborn is ripped from her arms, and where she sits alone for years before being ushered to safety in England. Away from her Bedouin village, Salma is an asylum-seeker trying to melt into the crowd, under pressure to reassess her way of life. She learns English customs from her landlady and befriends a Pakistani girl who is also on the run, with whose help Salma finally forges a new identity. But just as things settle, the need to return for her lost daughter overwhelms her, and one fateful day, Salma risks everything to go back and find her.


About the Author (from fadiafakir.com)

Fadia Faqir was born in Amman, Jordan, in 1956, the year of independence. She was educated at Jabal Al-Taj elementary and primary schools until she was fifteen then went to Queen Zain al-Sharaf School in Jabal Amman.

She read English Language and Literature at the University of Jordan between 1979-1983 and then worked as a freelance reporter for The Jerusalem Star, a Jordanian weekly in English.

She went to Britain in 1984 to study creative writing at Lancaster University. In 1985, she was awarded an MA in Creative Writing. She went back to Jordan determined to study classical Arabic and to begin writing in her mother tongue. She worked as a media coordinator for the Royal Academy for Islamic Civilisation Research (Al al-Bayt Foundation) and the Ministry of Higher Education.

In 1986, she returned to the UK to pursue a Ph.D. in creative writing. In 1990 the University of East Anglia awarded her the first Ph.D. in Critical and Creative Writing in the UK.

This was a DNF for me. The writing style was one I simply did not enjoy since it shifts continuously between Salma's current time in England, her past in Jordan, and the first days of her arrival in England. The shifts are abrupt like Salma is thinking back on her past in Jordan although the book doesn't typically mention that the scenes in Jordan are events that Salma is remembering. The abruptness of the shifts bothered me enough that I don't plan to continue the book right now. Maybe I'll revisit it sometime in the future.

Has anyone else tried to read this book? I'm considering to start it this weekend.