An Unlasting Home

Mai Al-Nakib author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Saqi Books

Published:4th Apr '23

Should be back in stock very soon

An Unlasting Home cover

Sara, a philosophy professor at Kuwait University, has long had an uneasy relationship with her homeland. But after her mother’s death, inertia keeps her there – until she is accused of blasphemy and faces the threat of execution. As she awaits trial, Sara is forced to reckon with her place in the world and the women who shaped her.

Her grandmothers’ lives span privilege and poverty: Yasmine, who married the son of a Pasha and soon regretted it, and Lulwa, swept from hardship into the wealth of an Indian merchant’s household. Then there are her two mothers: Noura, restless for America, and Maria, the devoted ayah who leaves her own children behind in Pune to raise Sara and her brother.

A sweeping saga, An Unlasting Home captures the tragedies and triumphs of three generations of Arab women in one unforgettable tale.

'A spellbinding family history unfolds as a Kuwaiti woman goes on trial for blasphemy in a world gone mad. Deftly written, structurally brilliant, Mai Al-Nakib's An Unlasting Home is a lasting novel that splits open time, leaps across continents and creates the sort of characters we carry forward into our hearts and lives. I absolutely loved this book.'

-- A. Manette Ansay

'So fresh and unsettling that it will enchant you from the first page and linger for days after reading ... Deftly written ... Its epic family saga style echoes that of Hala Alyan's Salt Houses and The Arsonists' City, Ayad Akhtar's Homeland Elegies, and Min Jin Lee's Pachinko.'

* Los Angeles Review of Books *

'For lovers of sweeping, multigenerational epics like Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing or Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko, this story following three generations of Arab women will strike right at the heart.'

* Bitch Med

ISBN: 9780863569272

Dimensions: 218mm x 136mm x 27mm

Weight: 382g

400 pages