Dancing Arabs

Kashua, Sayed

ISBN 10: 1501277472 ISBN 13: 9781501277474

Publisher: Audible Studios on Brilliance audio, 2015

Synopsis

As a child, our nameless antihero has big shoes to fill, having grown up with the myth of a grandfather who died fighting the Zionists in 1948, and with a father who was jailed for blowing up a school cafeteria in the name of freedom. When he is granted a scholarship to an elite Jewish boarding school, his family rejoices, dreaming that he will grow up to be the first Arab to build an atom bomb. But to their dismay, he turns out to be a coward devoid of any national pride; his only ambition is to fit in with his Jewish peers who reject him. He changes his clothes, his accent, his eating habits, and becomes an expert at faking identities, sliding between different cultures, schools and languages, and eventually a Jewish lover and an Arab wife. With refreshing candor and self-deprecating wit, Dancing Arabs brilliantly maps one man's struggle to disentangle his personal and national identities, only to tragically and inevitably forfeit both.

About this title

Review

"[Kashua's] hero does not have a God. He does not threaten with violence, nor does he ask for pity. . . . His life is a masquerade ball, and though he betrays himself, disguises himself, and pours himself from one character to another, he is always honest. And no reader, foreign or local, can remain indifferent to his truth."

Edition details

• Publisher: Audible Studios on Brilliance audio
• Publication date: 2015
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1501277472
• ISBN 13: 9781501277474
• Binding: MP3 CD