A Calamity of Noble Houses

(Paperback)

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One fateful night in December 1935, the destinies of two prominent families are changed forever. Zubaida, the young wife of Mohsen Ennaifer, is suspected of a clandestine love affair with Tahar, a radical intellectual from humble origins. This scandalous tryst has many facets, many truths, that are recounted in the voices of the eleven different narrators who, in a feat of storytelling virtuosity, animate this spectacular novel. A complex fresco of secrets, memories, accusations, regrets, and passions set against the backdrop of a country in turmoil, in search of its modern identity.

A compelling, muti-generational story of women's lives in one of the Arab World's most intriguing countries, a drama of forbidden love, and a contemporary narrative in which the truth remains forever slightly out of reach, A Calamity of Noble Houses is Amira Ghenim's English language debut.

Reviews

'"An epic novel, in which the writer portrays a pivotal decade in the modern history of Tunisia."' - International Prize for Arabic Fiction

'"Suspenseful, compelling, and often darkly humorous... A gripping exploration of motherhood, social inequality, and personal identity."' - Bookster

""Amira Ghenim's sweeping, multigenerational historical novel A Calamity of Noble Houses is not just a fictionalized version of [Tahar Haddad's] life, but a kaleidoscopic portrait of Tunisian history" - The New York Times

Author Bio

Amira Ghenim is a Tunisian writer and academic. Her novel The Yellow Dossier won the 2020 Sheikh Rashid Bin Hamad Prize. A Calamity of Noble Houses was published in 2020.

Miled Faiza is a poet, translator, and senior lecturer at Brown University. Among his translations are the Booker Prize-shortlisted novel Autumn, and Winter by Ali Smith.

Karen McNeil is an Arabic-to-English translator, currently completing a Ph.D. in Arabic linguistics at Georgetown University. Together with Miled Faiza, she has translated the 2016 IPAF winner The Italian by Shukri Mabkhout (Europa, 2021). She is also the translator of several poems and short stories for Banipal and World Literature Today.