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Sammar is a young Sudanese widow working as an Arabic translator in a university department. Numb with grief after losing her husband, and estranged from her young son, she is adrift -an exile in a hostile country. Things change when she falls in love with Rae - but, twice divorced and a self-proclaimed cynic, he is totally different from Sammar: secular, worldly, and not a Muslim.
"Aboulela's perceptive description of Sammar's aching loss of both Rae and her profession leaves an indelible impression, as does the conclusion of this beautifully crafted novel." - Booklist.
"With authentic detail and insight into both cultures, Aboulela painstakingly constructs a truly transformative denouement. " - PW.
"A strikingly poised, cherishable novel. " - Kirkus.
"Her writing is restrained and evocative, subtle and graceful." - Library Journal.
This information about The Translator was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Leila Aboulela won the first Caine Prize for African Writing and is the author of many novels. Minaret was longlisted for the 2006 Orange Prize. The Translator was one of The New York Times 100 Notable Books of the Year. Lyrics Alley won the Scottish Trust Book Award for Fiction and was short listed for The Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best Book (South Asia and Europe), and longlisted for the 2011 Orange Prize for Fiction.
Her latest novel is The Kindness of Enemies (2016).
Born in Khartoum, Sudan, Aboulela now lives in Doha, Qatar.
Link to Leila Aboulela's Website
Name Pronunciation
Leila Aboulela: Aboul-Ela
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