Not Heaven but Paradise

(Hardback)

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The son of a Spanish mother and an American father who claimed to have worked for the CIA, Paul Stewart lives in his family home, a carmen in the Albaicn district of Granada. The house, which surrounds a lush courtyard, has foundations that date from Spains Islamic era and has been in the family for generations. Struggling to make ends meet, Paul has turned the carmen into an artists residency that caters primarily to American artists. The only current guests are Simone, a celebrity painter with a sexualized reputation, and an asylum-seeking Algerian professor who is the subject of a fatwa. Paul has been forced to take him in. An African refugee named Blessed, whos been displaced by the arrival of the professor, suffers a crisis of both body and faith as a result. The relationship between Simone and Paul begins to complicate matters, and suspicions about everybody abound. Murky pasts and private agendas collide with avowed intentionsincluding those of the U.S. governmentas events gather momentum toward an explosive, revelatory finish. In the hands of Michael Mewshaw, a master storyteller, this story fairly shines in our fraught age of political secrets and international terrorism.

Author Bio

Michael Mewshaws five-decade career includes award-winning fiction, non-fiction, literary criticism, travel writing and investigative journalism. In his memoirs, Mewshaw has written about authors such as William Styron, James Jones, Paul Bowles, Anthony Burgess, Gore Vidal, Italo Calvino, Pat Conroy, and Graham Greene. He has written hundreds of articles, reviews and literary profiles for The New YorkTimes, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Nation, Newsweek, Harpers and many international outlets. Hes the author of a dozen novels and as many nonfiction titles. Hes lived a nomadic life for more than 50 years, having traveled and lived in many different countries in Europe, Africa and the Far East. He currently winters in Key West with his wife Linda.