The Road from Damascus - Softcover

Yassin-Kassab, Robin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0141035641 ISBN 13: 9780141035642

Publisher: Penguin, 2009

Synopsis

It is summer 2001 and Sami Traifi is struggling. His PhD seems to be slipping ever further from his grasp, and a recent trip home to Damascus has thrown up some disturbing family secrets. On top of all this, his wife Muntaha has just announced that she is taking up the hijab, at a time when he couldn't feel more distant from faith, religion, and from having any answers for any of the big questions.

Furious with Muntaha, he finds himself embarking on a spontaneous quest for meaning and fulfillment, but all too soon his search spirals into a hedonistic rampage and threatens to destroy everything that he has . . .

About this title

Review:

'A novel so packed with ideas it threatens at times to explode ... One of the author's gifts, and he has many, is to give us characters, who, even at their most wilfully one-dimensional, are believable and, at times, funny' Independent 'A fantastically enjoyable, wise and intelligent novel that grows in the telling and should cause the most feted of literary stars to sit up and take notice' Big Issue 'A rambunctious and daring novel, with scattered comedy amid the drama' Metro

From the Back Cover:

'Wonderful, witty, very original' Independent

Love, religion and revolution in summer, 2001 . . .

Second-generation Londoner Sami Traifi's life is in turmoil. Unsure where it went wrong - or how to put it right - he makes a brief trip to visit relatives in Damascus. But there - courtesy of a nasty family secret - things only seem to get worse.

Back home in London, the non-believer Sami must face up to his fraying marriage, his wife's decision to wear the hijab and her brother's hip-hop Islamism. And these are the least of his problems. He wants to be a good British citizen - but he's not sure what that means anymore. While the police's idea of one is certainly not his. He must ask himself: what will I do in the name of belief? And what won't I do? What do I love most?

The Road from Damascus is a brave, funny and exhilarating contemporary novel that asks questions about the choices we make and ponders how those choices not only affect us but those we love the most.

'Outstanding, fantastically enjoyable, wise and intelligent . . . reminds us how rich a good book can be' Big Issue

'Extraordinary' Sunday Telegraph

'Written with verve, imagination, intelligence . . . remarkable' Scotsman

'An eye-opener, richly evocative' Daily Mail

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0141035641
• ISBN 13: 9780141035642
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 368