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Overview
“Exquisitely woven.”—Leila Aboulela Timely and lyrical, The Cry of the Dove is the story of one young woman and an evocative portrait of forbidden love and violated honor in a culture whose reverberations are felt profoundly in our world today. Salma has committed a crime punishable by death in her Bedouin tribe of Hima, Levant: she had sex out of wedlock and became pregnant. Despite the insult it would commit against her people, Salma has the child and suddenly finds herself a fugitive on the run from those seeking to restore their honor. Salma is rushed into protective custody where her newborn is ripped from her arms, and where she sits alone for years before being ushered to safety in England. Away from her Bedouin village, Salma is an asylum-seeker trying to melt into the crowd, under pressure to reassess her way of life. She learns English customs from her landlady and befriends a Pakistani girl who is also on the run, with whose help Salma finally forges a new identity. But just as things settle, the need to return for her lost daughter overwhelms her, and one fateful day, Salma risks everything to go back and find her.
Synopsis
“Exquisitely woven.”—Leila Aboulela Timely and lyrical, The Cry of the Dove is the story of one young woman and an evocative portrait of forbidden love and violated honor in a culture whose reverberations are felt profoundly in our world today. Salma has committed a crime punishable by death in her Bedouin tribe of Hima, Levant: she had sex out of wedlock and became pregnant. Despite the insult it would commit against her people, Salma has the child and suddenly finds herself a fugitive on the run from those seeking to restore their honor. Salma is rushed into protective custody where her newborn is ripped from her arms, and where she sits alone for years before being ushered to safety in England. Away from her Bedouin village, Salma is an asylum-seeker trying to melt into the crowd, under pressure to reassess her way of life. She learns English customs from her landlady and befriends a Pakistani girl who is also on the run, with whose help Salma finally forges a new identity. But just as things settle, the need to return for her lost daughter overwhelms her, and one fateful day, Salma risks everything to go back and find her.
Andrea Kempf - Library Journal
Jordanian British author Faqir (Pillars of Salt) has written an exquisite novel describing the plight of Salma, a young Bedouin woman who has become pregnant before marriage and must flee her village to avoid being murdered by her brother, as the tribal code of honor killings demands. Told in the first person, the discontinuous narrative of Salma's life is as well constructed as a mosaic in which each tile is lovely in itself but helps to create a whole that is breathtaking. As the reader is taken back and forth in time, Salma reinvents herself as an immigrant in England, where she finds work as a seamstress, makes friends with a Pakistani woman also fleeing her family's wrath, copes with her aging alcoholic roommate, learns English, and eventually enters the university. Yet she is unable to escape her past; she's haunted by memories of her village childhood, eight years in protective custody in a Middle Eastern prison, time spent in a Lebanese convent, and, most important, the daughter taken from her. As Salma's life moves toward its inevitable climax, readers will be transfixed. Strongly recommended for all literary collections.
Editorials
Library Journal
Jordanian British author Faqir (Pillars of Salt) has written an exquisite novel describing the plight of Salma, a young Bedouin woman who has become pregnant before marriage and must flee her village to avoid being murdered by her brother, as the tribal code of honor killings demands. Told in the first person, the discontinuous narrative of Salma's life is as well constructed as a mosaic in which each tile is lovely in itself but helps to create a whole that is breathtaking. As the reader is taken back and forth in time, Salma reinvents herself as an immigrant in England, where she finds work as a seamstress, makes friends with a Pakistani woman also fleeing her family's wrath, copes with her aging alcoholic roommate, learns English, and eventually enters the university. Yet she is unable to escape her past; she's haunted by memories of her village childhood, eight years in protective custody in a Middle Eastern prison, time spent in a Lebanese convent, and, most important, the daughter taken from her. As Salma's life moves toward its inevitable climax, readers will be transfixed. Strongly recommended for all literary collections.
—Andrea Kempf