Belletristik Frühjahr 2021 Literatur 3 Unterhaltung 24 Spannung 34 Weitere Highlights 42 Marc Koralnik
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[email protected] Mai Al-Nakib STRANGE BIRDS Publisher Client Custom House Ayesha Pande Literary 2022 Contact 393 pages Anja Kretschmann Acclaimed short-story writer Mai Al-Nakib’s transporting debut novel, STRANGE BIRDS is a multigenerational saga which spans Lebanon, Iraq, India, the United States, and Kuwait to bring to life the heart-stopping triumphs and failures of three generations of Arab women. In 2013, Sara is a philosophy professor at Kuwait University, hav- ing returned to Kuwait from Berkeley in the wake of her mother’s sudden death eleven years earlier. Her main companions are her grandmother’s talking parrot, Bebe Mitu; the family cook, Aasif; and Maria, her childhood ayah and the one person who has always been there for her. When she is faced with the twin calamities of an accusation Literatur of blasphemy (for teaching Nietzsche in her Intro to Philosophy course), which carries with it the threat of execution, and Maria’s sudden heart-attack, Sara begins to unravel. As the days leading up to her trial tick down, Sara finds herself retracing the past, exca- vating what she remembers of her own choices and those of the women who made her, hoping that if she can understand what led her home in the first place, she might figure out how to leave behind this country she no longer recognizes – if it is not too late.