The Hidden Light of Objects
by Mai Al-Nakib
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For fans of Alice Munro and Lorrie Moore. A young girl, renamed Amerika in honour of the US role in the liberation of Kuwait, finds her name has become a barometer of her country's growing hostility towards the West. A self-conscious Palestinian teenager is drawn into a botched suicide bombing by two belligerent classmates. A middle-aged man dying from cancer looks back on his extramarital affairs and the abiding forgiveness of his wife. A Kuwaiti woman returns to her family after being held show more captive in Iraq for a decade. The headlines tell of war, unrest and religious clashes. But if you look beyond them you may see life in the Middle East as it is really lived - adolescent love, yearnings for independence, the fragility of marriage, pain of the most quotidian kind. Mai Al-Nakib's luminous stories carefully unveil the lives of ordinary people in the Middle East - and the power of ordinary objects to hold extraordinary memories. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
Wow! I am so glad I won this book in the Goodreads giveaway.
The Hidden Light of Objects is a beautifully written collection of short stories set for the most part in the Middle East. Many of the stories are connected. Sometimes it is a familial connection that spans several decades and other times it is through shared references to mundane objects that hold memories and secrets. There is a pervasive sense of loneliness and loss through many of the stories and you are kept aware of the underlying unrest in that area of the world. But for all of the sadness there is hope and beauty as well.
I think what I most enjoyed about this book was the language. Al-Nakib is wonderfully adept at describing people, nature, emotions and smells. Her show more words flow poetically and you are instantly transported wherever she wants the stories to take you. I found myself re-reading many of the passages just to savor the combinations of words and the emotions they evoke. show less
The Hidden Light of Objects is a beautifully written collection of short stories set for the most part in the Middle East. Many of the stories are connected. Sometimes it is a familial connection that spans several decades and other times it is through shared references to mundane objects that hold memories and secrets. There is a pervasive sense of loneliness and loss through many of the stories and you are kept aware of the underlying unrest in that area of the world. But for all of the sadness there is hope and beauty as well.
I think what I most enjoyed about this book was the language. Al-Nakib is wonderfully adept at describing people, nature, emotions and smells. Her show more words flow poetically and you are instantly transported wherever she wants the stories to take you. I found myself re-reading many of the passages just to savor the combinations of words and the emotions they evoke. show less
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2 Works 133 Members
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- Members
- 40
- Popularity
- 727,928
- Reviews
- 1
- Rating
- (4.25)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 5
- ASINs
- 1
