The Map of Salt and Stars

Posted on 23 January 2017 by Jennifer Zeynab Joukhadar

This rich, moving, and lyrical debut novel is to Syria what The Kite Runner was to Afghanistan the story of two girls living eight hundred years apart a modern day Syrian refugee seeking safety and a medieval adventurer apprenticed to a legendary mapmaker places today s headlines in the sweep of history, where the pain of exile and the triumph of courage echo again and again.It is the summer of 2011, and Nour has just lost her father to cancer Her mother, a cartographer who creates unusual, hand painted maps, decides to move Nour and her sisters from New York City back to Syria to be closer to their family But the country Nour s mother once knew is changing, and it isn t long before protests and shelling threaten their quiet Homs neighborhood When a shell destroys Nour s house and almost takes her life, she and her family are forced to choose stay and risk violence or flee as refugees across seven countries of the Middle East and North Africa in search of safety As their journey becomes and challenging, Nour s idea of home becomes a dream she struggles to remember and a hope she cannot live without.More than eight hundred years earlier, Rawiya, sixteen and a widow s daughter, knows she must do something to help her impoverished mother Restless and longing to see the world, she leaves home to seek her fortune Disguising herself as a boy named Rami, she becomes an apprentice to al Idrisi, who has been commissioned by King Roger II of Sicily to create a map of the world In his employ, Rawiya embarks on an epic journey across the Middle East and the north of Africa where she encounters ferocious mythical beasts, epic battles, and real historical figures.A deep immersion into the richly varied cultures of the Middle East and North Africa, The Map of Salt and Stars follows the journeys of Nour and Rawiya as they travel along identical paths across the region eight hundred years apart, braving the unknown beside their companions as they are pulled by the promise of reaching home at last. Read The Map of Salt and Stars – kino-fada.fr You know that wonderful feeling when you read the last page of a truly great story and then you clutch the book to your chest as if to hug the world within those pages That s how I m feeling right now I loved this book It was so simple and honest, laden with the most lyrically beautiful prose, and filled with gloriously human characters whose stories have touched me deeply The story unfurls through two time periods In the contemporary setting Syrian American Nour s life is upended when her You know that wonderful feeling when you read the last page of a truly great story and then you clutch the book to your chest as if to hug the world within those pages That s how I m feeling right now I loved this book It was so simple and honest, laden with the most lyrically beautiful prose, and filled with gloriously human characters whose stories have touched me deeply The story unfurls through two time periods In the contemporary setting Syrian American Nour s life is upended when her beloved father dies and her mother moves the family back to Syria to the city of Homs 12 year old Nour grieves for her father and deals with that grief by recounting to...E M Forster taught us that fiction is truer than history than history because it goes beyond the evidence Jennifer Zeynab Maccani s magic first novel is a testimony to that maxim We ve all been aware of the plight of Syrian refugees, but in this richly imaginative story we see ...It would be impossible to overstate how proud we are to be publishing this gorgeous and important novel Nour s voice will capture your heart and linger in your mind long after you read the final page Jennifer Zeynab Joukhadar is not only immensely talented, but has a story that needs to be told.You cannot read this book without gaining a new respect for Syrian Refugees In this richly drawn story a contempoary Syrian family is torn apart after their home is destroyed As the family attempts to escape the violence and leave Syria the reader is given an intimate window to the experience through the voice of a 12 year old girl Concurrently we travel back to twelfth century as another fatherless girl leaves home to apprentice with cartographer Her adventures are no less horrowing than o You cannot read this book without gaining a new respect for Syrian Refugees In this richly drawn story a contempoary Syrian family is torn apart after their home is destroyed As the family attempts to escape the violence and leave Syria the reader is given an intimate window to the experience through the voice of a 12 year old girl Concurrently we travel back to twelfth century as another fatherless girl leaves home to apprentice with cartographer Her adventures are no less ho...This lyrical, beautiful debut novel charts the course of two remarkable young women, traveling parallel journeys hundreds of years apart While one is a mythical tale along the lines of Arabian Nights, the other is a muchmodern and heartbreaking story of a young woman and her family trying to find safety in their escape from war torn Syria I will be recommending this novel to everyone as I think it will be an important reminder of the human crisis that all refugees face, especially those This lyrical, beautiful debut novel charts the course of two remarkable young women, traveling parallel journeys hundreds of years apart While one is a mythical tale along the lines of Arabian Nights, the other is a muchmodern and heartbreaking story of a young woman and her family trying to find safety in their escape from war torn Syria I will be recommending this novel t...This debut novel takes readers on two journeys some 800 years apart It is 2011 and after the death of her father, 12 yr old Nour and her family travel from NYC back to Syria to be closer to family Her mother, a cartographer, hopes that the move will be comforting to them all, but soon after among the protests and bombings, their house is destroyed and while one sister is injured they find themselves needing to flee 800 years prior, 16 yr old Rawiya is desperate to help her impoverished widowe This debut novel takes readers on two journeys some 800 years apart It is 2011 and after the death of her father, 12 yr old Nour and her family travel from NYC back to Syria to be closer to family Her mother, a cartographer, hopes that the move will be comforting to them all, but soon after among the protests and bombings, their house is destroyed and while one sister is injured they find themselves needing to flee 800 years prior, 16 yr old Rawiya is despe...4.5 stars What are the most important places on a map The places you ve never been This stunningly written, heartbreakingly beautiful but ultimately, hopeful story is a rich, multilayered sweeping saga, connecting two incredible heroines across the better part of nearly a millennia This is not a story to gulp down quickly it requires attention and connection, a full experiencing of both the horrific tragedy within its pages as well as the deeply felt joy Not only does Jennifer Zeyn 4.5 stars What are the most important places on a map The places you ve never been This stunningly written, heartbreakingly beautiful but ultimately, hopeful story is a rich, multilayered sweeping saga, connecting two incredible heroines across the better part of nearly a millennia This is not a story to gulp down...A sweeping look at the Muslim world from Syria around the Mediterranean to Algeria Two harrowing journeys In one, a group of mapmakers mount camels to plot the geography of the known world, battling warlords, kings and the fantastic mythical beast Roc 800 years later, a mother, who draws maps for a living every map is, after all, a story with three ...I confess to having a hard time connecting with this book The story of a Syrian family, it follows them on their hard journey after their home is destroyed by a shell It is broken up with a second story retold by one of the young girls, a fable that her late father used to read to her Unfortunately I didn t find these chapters very engaging and after a while began to skim through them as they were quite long I felt they interrupted the flow of the modern day story which I much preferred, es I confess to having a hard time connecting with this book The story of a Syrian family, it follows them on their hard journey after their home is destroyed by a shell It is broken up with a second story retold by one of the young girls, a fable that her late father used to read to her Unfortunately I didn t find these chapters very engaging and after a while began to skim through them as they were quite long I felt they interrupted the flow of the modern day story which...Two alternating stories tell the harrowing tale of a trio of sisters forced to flee with their family after their Syrian town is bombed Twelve year old Nour, still mourning the recent loss of her father, makes it a point to tell one of his stories as she travels so that she can still feel close to him, so we get the story of Rawiya, a girl 800 years earlier who disguises herself as a boy to apprentice to a map maker In these two stories, we follow Nour and Rawiya though their travels in the mi Two alternating stories tell the harrowing tale of a trio of sisters forced to flee with their family after their Syrian town is bombed Twelve year old Nour, still mourning the recent loss of her father, makes it a point to tell one of his stories as she travels so that she can still feel close to him, so we get the story of Rawiya, a girl 800 years earlier who disguises herself as a boy to apprentice to a map maker In these two sto...

English
23 January 2017

Jennifer Zeynab Joukhadar