Ghady & Rawan (Emerging Voices from the Middle East) - Softcover

Sharafeddine, Fatima; Barraj, Samar Mahfouz

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1477318526 ISBN 13: 9781477318522

Publisher: Ctr for Middle Eastern Studies UT-Austin, 2019

Synopsis

Ghady and Rawan is a heartfelt and timely novel by the award-winning author Fatima Sharafeddine (The Servant, Cappuccino) and Samar Mahfouz Barraj. The novel follows the close-knit friendship of two Lebanese teenagers, Ghady, who lives with his family in Belgium, and Rawan, who lives in Lebanon. Ghady’s family travels every summer to Beirut, where Ghady gets to spend all his time with Rawan and their other friends, enjoying their freedom from school. During the rest of the year, he and Rawan keep in touch by email. Through this correspondence, we learn about the daily ups and downs of their lives in Brussels and Beirut, including Ghady’s homesickness and his struggles with racism at school, as well as Rawan’s changing relationship to her family. The novel offers a glimpse into the lives of Lebanese adolescents while exploring a range of topics relevant to young people everywhere: bullying, parental conflicts, racism, belonging and identity, and peer pressure. Through the connection between the two main characters, Sharafeddine and Mahfouz Barraj show how the love and support of a good friend can help you through difficulties as well as sweeten life’s triumphs and good times.

About this title

About the Author:

Fatima Sharafeddine is a writer, translator, and editor of children’s and young adult literature living in Beirut and Brussels. She has written and published over 120 books, many of which have been translated into various languages.
Samar Mahfouz Barraj is a prominent and award-winning Lebanese writer of children’s and young adult literature in Arabic who has published sixty-one books.
Sawad Hussain is an Arabic translator and litterateur who is passionate about Arab culture, history and literature.

M Lynx Qualey is founding editor of ArabLit (www.arablit.org). She loves reading, editing, translating, and talking about Arabic novels for young readers.

Review:

"Contemporary, down to earth, enjoyable! Written for today's teenagers. Recommended as school reading, it cuts across a variety of topics that should be discussed openly in classrooms." (Zeyna Al-Jabri, critic and bookseller (Buzoor))

"Few works of fiction for young people written in Arabic are available in English; Ghady & Rawan offers us a glimpse into young people growing up between Belgium and Lebanon. A touching, funny, and all too real story, this short novel should be read by young adults and not-so-young adults alike. The sensitive translation by Hussain and Lynx Qualey conveys the highs and lows of adolescence in a language accessible to a wide range of readers." (Michelle Hartman, McGill University)

About this edition

• Publisher: Ctr for Middle Eastern Studies UT-Austin
• Publication date: 2019
• ISBN 10: 1477318526
• ISBN 13: 9781477318522
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 134