The Dove's Necklace

(Hardback)

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Description

Mu'az, the photographer's apprentice, was leaping between two roofs when he froze in mid-air, transfixed by what he saw below. Deep in the cleft between the two houses was the body.In Mecca's 'Lane of Many Heads' lies the unclothed body of a murdered woman. Nobody claims the victim: her nudity is a source of shame in the Holy City's strictly conservative culture. When the cholesterol-riddled and sleep-deprived detective Nasser al-Qahtani takes charge of the investigation, he is soon confronted by some of Mecca's darkest secrets by its corruption, poverty, misogyny and rampant greed. Never once shying away from taboos, Raja Alem effortlessly intertwines myth, fantasy and everyday reality to evoke the rich mosaic of Meccan life to tell the story of a civilisation torn between dogmatic conservatism and the desire to modernise. Narrated by several different voices including two headstrong women and the 'Lane of Many Heads' itself The Dove's Necklace is a beautiful, powerful novel which challenges false preconceptions of the Arab world, and conjures up a compelling portrait of a city and its people

Reviews

A surreal and meditative take on a murder mystery -- Deborah Smith * Guardian summer reads *
Masterly crafted and perfectly paced an intense, near-spiritual experience * Chicago Review of Books *
A story the likes of which you have never read before * Elle France *

Author Bio

Raja Alem was born in Mecca and now lives in Paris. She has received many awards in both the Arab world and Europe for her novels and other writing. In 2011, she became the first woman to win the International Prize for Arabic Fiction.