In the Eye of the Sun

by Ahdaf Soueif

Overview

Set amidst the turmoil of contemporary Middle Eastern politics, this vivid and highly-acclaimed novel by an Egyptian journalist is an intimate look into the lives of Arab women today. Here, a woman who grows up among the Egyptian elite, marries a Westernized husband, and, while pursuing graduate study, becomes embroiled in a love affair with an uncouth Englishman.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780385720373
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	04/03/2000
Pages:	816
Sales rank:	840,042
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.90(h) x 1.72(d)

About the Author

Ahdaf Soueif is the author of two novels, In the Eye of the Sun and The Map of Love, which was short-listed for the Booker Prize in 1999; a story collection, I Think of You; and an essay collection, Mezzaterra: Notes from the Common Ground. She lives in Cairo, where she was born.

Editorial Reviews

"Something of a landmark...a bold and important work. [This] is the first novel I know of that successfully renders an Arab, Egyptian Muslim reality in English. A tour de force."—Leila Ahmed, Washington Post Book World
"Raw, accurate, searing....Soueif [is] one ofthe most extraordinary chroniclers of sexual politics now writing."—Edward Said, The Times Literary Supplement

From the Publisher

This densely detailed, richly textured novel impeccably recreates the milieus of Cairo, London and English university life as it recounts the maturing of Asya, a beautiful Egyptian who, by her own admission, ``feels more comfortable with art than with life.'' Soueif, a Londoner making her American debut, tells Asya's story cinematically, beginning in 1979 and going back to 1967, with chapters formally divided into scenes and a plethora of flashbacks, flash-forwards and different perspectives. During the course of those years, Asya, daughter of an intellectual Cairo family, falls in love with and marries Saif, a highly successful computer expert who indulges her with considerable luxuries. But the marriage is plagued by sexual problems; going to England to pursue a doctorate, Asya eventually takes up with Gerald, a pseudo-sensitive boor studying marketing. Finally, her marriage over, she returns to a very different and less hospitable Cairo than the one in which she grew up to begin a teaching career about which she is, at best, ambivalent. The author invests scenes of childhood with the burnished glow of fond memory; these are among the most poignant passages here. Her impressive and only slightly overlong novel, with its acutely observed vision of male-female relations as a series of complex power struggles, suggests the emergence of a major new talent. (June)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

The war-torn Middle East is a dramatic backdrop for Asya's coming of age. A beautiful Egyptian of wealth and privilege, she is untouched by the wars and turmoil around her and instead focuses on her future husband, Saif, and on her single-minded pursuit of a Ph.D. But Saif's computer business keeps him isolated in the Syrian desert, and Asya's Ph.D. grant lands her in a grim English university where chilly weather and chillier people prevail. Frustrated in marriage and career, she casts about, surviving a disastrous affair and eventually growing into ``complete possession of herself.'' Soueif's novel is an impressive next step forward in time from Naguib Mahfouz's ``Cairo Trilogy'' (e.g., Palace of Desire , LJ 1/91). Its structure, characters, and unique blend of clashing cultures and politics make it an important addition to any collection.-- Paul E. Hutchison, Bellefonte, Pa.

Library Journal