Excerpt from The Map of Salt and Stars by Zeyn Joukhadar, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

But the man only pursed his lips and waited, so she groaned and thought hard.

"Wherever you are," Rawiya said, "at that moment."

The man smiled that cat smile again. "If you knew where you were, why would you need the map?"

Rawiya tugged at the sleeve of her robe. "Home, then. The place you're going."

"But you know that, if you're going there. Is that your final answer?"

Rawiya knitted her brows. She had never even seen a map before. "This riddle has no answer," she said. "You wouldn't use a map unless you didn't know where you were going, unless you'd never been to a place before—" Then it made sense, and Rawiya smiled. "That's it. The most important places on a map are the places you've never been."

The man stood. "Do you have a name, young riddle-solver?"

"My name is—Rami." Rawiya looked back at the Medina. "Will you bring me to the mapmaker? I answered your questions." The man laughed. "My name is Abu Abd Allah Muhammad al-Idrisi, scholar and mapmaker. I am honored to make your acquaintance."

The blood pounded in Rawiya's chest. "Sir—" She bowed her head, flustered. "I am at your service."

"Then you will sail with me to Sicily within a fortnight," al-Idrisi said, "to the palace of King Roger the Second of Palermo, where a great and honorable task awaits us."



I'VE JUST STARTED telling the story of Rawiya to the fig tree when a blast in the distance shakes the stones under my belly. My guts jump. A low booming comes from some other neighborhood of the city, deep and far away.

It's the third explosion in three days. Since we moved to Homs, I've heard booming like that only a couple of times, and always far off. It's gotten to be like thunder—scary if you thought about it too much, but not something that would hit your house. I've never heard it this close before, not near our neighborhood.

The vibrations fade. I wait for another clap of fear, but it never comes. I pull my fingers from the soil, my thumbs still twitching.

"Nour." It's Mama's voice, warm cedar brown, its edges curled up into red. She's annoyed. "Come in and help me." I kiss the fig's roots and replace the dirt. "I'll finish the story," I tell it. "I promise I will."

I roll back onto my heels and brush the dirt off my knees. My back is in sunshine, my shoulder blades stiff with heat. It's a different kind of hot here, not like in New York where the humidity makes you lie on the floor in front of the fan. Here it's dry-hot, and the air chaps your lips until they split.

"Nour!"

Mama's voice is so red it's almost white. I tumble toward the door. I dodge the stretched canvas drying by the jamb, the framed maps Mama doesn't have room for in the house. I plunge into the cool dark, my sandals slapping the stone.

Inside, the walls breathe sumac and sigh out the tang of olives. Oil and fat sizzle in a pan, popping up in yellow and black bursts in my ears. The colors of voices and smells tangle in front of me like they're projected on a screen: the peaks and curves of Huda's pink-and-purple laugh, the brick-red ping of a kitchen timer, the green bite of baking yeast.

I kick off my sandals by the front door. In the kitchen, Mama mutters in Arabic and clucks her tongue. I can understand a little but not all of it. New words seem to sprout out of Mama all the time since we moved—turns of phrase, things I've never heard that sound like she's said them all her life.

"Your sisters. Where are they?" Mama's got her hands in a bowl of raw meat and spices, kneading it, giving off a prickly cilantro smell. She's changed her dress slacks for a skirt today, a papery navy thing that swishes against the backs of her knees. She's not wearing an apron, but she hasn't got a single oil stain on her white silk blouse. I don't think I've ever seen her with a speck of oil or a smear of flour on her clothes, not in my whole life.

Excerpted from The Map of Salt and Stars by Jennifer Zeynab Joukhadar. Copyright © 2018 by Jennifer Zeynab Joukhadar. Excerpted by permission of Touchstone. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.