Chaos of the Senses - Hardcover

Mosteghanemi, Ahlam

3.78

19,701 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 9774246705 ISBN 13: 9789774246708

Publisher: The American University in Cairo Press, 2004

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Ahlam Mosteghanemi's second novel picks up where Memory in the Flesh left off, with the story of love set in the battered and bruised Algeria of the1990s. Mosteghanemi takes her readers through the streets of suspicion and suspense, and the ups and downs of a forbidden love affair, through a story within a story, as a writer stuck in a loveless marriage to an important military man inadvertently writes what eventually comes true.
She begins - after a period of not writing - by penning the narrative of a mysterious man who courts the object of his desire through deceptive words, then she helplessly follows the path of her fictitious character only to find that the mystery man exists and it is he who has led her to his door and into his life. One twist leads to the next, as the question remains of which man the writer was destined to meet and fall in love with - the mysterious artist or the doomed journalist.
This lyrical adventure teases the reader with facts for fiction and fiction for facts. The backdrop of political chaos creates a sense of foreboding and fear for two powerless lovers. But where is reality and where is fantasy?

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About the Author:

Ahlam Mosteghanemi received her B.A. in Arabic literature from the University of Algiers in 1973, and was awarded a doctorate in sociology from the Sorbonne in 1982. She is the author of Memory in the Flesh (AUC Press, 1999), which was awarded the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature.

Review:

“A novel of swirling, towering emotion. Hayat is thrown into confusion when her fictional world collides with reality, swept further into turmoil by her lover and then wrenched back into the gory reality of this nadir for Algeria. Her sensuous reveries slowly twist these disparate strands together in ways which exert a mesmerising pull upon the reader.” ―Independent on Sunday

“A window into a different world.” ―Daily Mail on The Bridges of Constantine

“Remarkable, insightful . . . The elegiac quality is present not just in the themes, but also in the astonishingly poetic language throughout . . . I stopped and marvelled every few pages . . . This is one of the richest and most evocative books that I have read all year, I only hope we don't have to wait too long for the two sequels to The Bridges of Constantine to be published in English. The Arab-speaking world shouldn't get to keep Mosteghanemi's novels all to itself.” ―Independent

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