The Dark Side of Love
Price:
£12.99
Publisher:
Arabia Books
Publish date:
May 2009
ISBN:
978-1-906697-11-1
Binding:
Paperback Description:
A story of forbidden love set against the background of Arabic culture and endless feuds between clans. An international bestseller available for the first time in English from March 2009. A dead man hangs from the portal of St Paul’s Chapel in Damascus. He was a Muslim officer - and he was murdered. But when Detective Barudi sets out to interrogate the man's mysterious widow, the Secret Service takes the case away from him. Barudi continues to investigate clandestinely and discovers the murderer's motive: it is a blood feud between the Mustak and Shahin clans, reaching back to the beginnings of the 20th century. And, linked to it, a love story that can have no happy ending, for reconciliation has no place within the old tribal structures.
Review:
‘The Dark Side of Love is a fiction that accurately (if selectively) documents Syrian social history. Its sweep reaches from 1907 to 1970, through the French occupation, the chaotic coup years, the rise of the Ba'ath and the disastrous June war. Farid and Rana swim on the great currents of 20th-century Syrian thought - communism, feminism, nationalism, Islamism - and witness the poisoning of the waters. Farid's torture scenes are painfully, brilliantly narrated.’ - Robin Yassin-Kassab, The Guardian
