Product Description

In 1900, Lady Anna Winterbourne travels to Egypt where she falls in love with Sharif, an Egyptian Nationalist utterly committed to his country's cause. A hundred years later, Isabel Parkman, an American divorcee and a descendant of Anna and Sharif, goes to Egypt, taking with her an old family trunk, inside which are found notebooks and journals which reveal Anna and Sharif's secret.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #17892 in Books
• Published on: 2000-03-23
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 544 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Ahdaf Soueif's The Map of Love is a massive family saga, a story that draws its readers into two moments in the complex, and troubled, history of modern Egypt. The story begins in New York, in 1997: Isabel Parkman discovers an old trunk full of documents--some in English, some in Arabic--in her dying mother's apartment. Omar-al- Ghamrawi, a man with whom she is falling in love, directs her to his sister, Amal, in Cairo. Together the two women begin to uncover the stories embedded in the journal of Lady Anna Winterbourne (who travels to Egypt in 1900 and falls in love with Sharif Pasha al- Barudi, an Egyptian Nationalist) and the unsuspected connections between their own families. British colonialism, Egyptian nationalism, the clash of cultures in the Middle East in 1900 and the present day: the different narratives of The Map of Love weave a subtle, and reflective, tale of love across culture and conflict--the ways in which relations between individuals may (or may not) make the difference. "I am in an English autumn in 1897 and Anna's troubled heart lies open before me": Amal's response to Anna Winterbourne's journal could be a description of how to read this fascinating book, its invitation to use words as a means to travel through time, space and identity. --Vicky Lebeau

Daily Telegraph
'A page-turning holiday read.'

Sunday Telegraph
'A vivid and passionate love story.'

Customer Reviews

A fine romance.
If you love books which transport you to another world (in this case, at least two different worlds in two different time periods), which give you fascinating insights into other cultures, which incorporate a good deal of history into an exciting and completely developed story line, and which introduce you to a main character so charming and intelligent that you hate to have her disappear at the end of the novel, you will be thoroughly captivated by Map of Love.

Anna Winterbourne, an aristocratic young widow from England, travels to Egypt in the late 19th century during the height of British Empire. She notes the condescension towards the Egyptians and is intelligently critical of military "adventures" there and in other Arab states such as the Sudan, South Africa, and Palestine. As she comes to know the Egyptian people and falls in love with an Egyptian, the reader--along with Anna's granddaughter and great-granddaughter, who are reading the letters and diaries which reveal her story--learns much about the past history which has so complicated presentday relations between western and Arab countries.

Like most romances, this one requires you to accept a very high level of coincidence, but that is more than offset by fine descriptive writing, fully drawn characters, and the placing of a great many recent Middle Eastern events into their Arab contexts. This Egyptian author succeeds in presenting events from an Arab point of view to a western audience--a view that is culturally honest without being polemical. Mary Whipple

Education that is by no means dull
This is the second book that I have read by Ahdaf Soueif (following "In the Eye of the Sun") and I am astounded by the fact that one woman could write two such different novels in a space of a couple of years. This is a story spanning almost two hundred years of Egyptian history through a double time line. The concept is great, and although at first it may be confusing, the family tree provided and Ahdaf Soueif's superb writing abilities soon overcome this. I must confess that I knew little of the British occupation of Egypt (even though I am part English) and so, this book has contributed vastly to my education on world matters as well as my own country's history. I find the way she tackles subjects that are still under the spotlight in Egypt (aswell as the rest of the Arab world), such as feminism, the Palestinian/Israeli issue and even terrorism, commendable. Having visited the country recently, her concerns over these issues, are well voiced and still demanding - to various extents - to be solved. The human element of love and family simply serves to make the historical factor more realistic and poignent. Once again, a book that must be read by all; British, Egyptian or otherwise.

I would only change the title
If someone selected this work based on the title, they may well be disappointed, or alternatively, they may overlook a great work which delves into the history of Egypt, in particular Egypt's relationship with the English over the last hundred years, in the context of a beautiful, cross-cultural, cross-generational, love affair.

...the main character, Anna, is undoubtedly exceptional, however, I am certain that a tiny handful of English women of her time had the same open-minded attitude to the Egyptians. Never is it suggested that Anna had an easy ride as a result of the choice she made to marry an Egyptian. She remained an outsider to the English and the Egyptians, to a very large extent, hence her need to write these fascinating diaries and letters.The risk of this Anglo-Egyptian liaison is very high for Anna and her husband. She is rejected by most of her English counterparts in Egypt and the price her husband ultimately pays, possibly as a result of his liaison with her, is irreversible.

Despite the fact that this is fiction, I would still say that fortunately individuals such as Anna did what little they could to try to educate others in England on what being Egyptian actually meant.First-hand experience is perhaps the best way to achieve profound, cultural understanding, and only when fully immersed in a foreign world can people begin to comprehend the value of cultural integration. The English in England who had not seen or lived what the Egyptians were battling with at the turn of the century could not begin to understand what was important to Egypt, and yet they were controlling the country.

Soueif, born in Cairo and educated in Egypt and England, is in a perfect position to paint both the English and the Egyptian picture, and she does so from the most open-minded, factually-based perspective we could dream of. Her vision, her writing skill and her knowledge are what we need to move forward in society as a whole.