The Patience Stone - Hardcover

Rahimi, Atiq

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0701184167 ISBN 13: 9780701184162

Publisher: Chatto & Windus, 2010

Synopsis

Winner of France's prestigious Goncourt Prize for 2008, and set in modern-day Aghanistan, this explosive and moving short novel, with a shocking twist, takes a compelling literary look behind the veil, daring to confront taboos of female oppression and sexuality. A young woman sits at her husband's bedside, twisting her worry beads, reciting prayers. Shot in the neck by a fellow soldier, he is in a coma. The passage of time is measured by the sound of his breathing, the slow drip that keeps him alive and the calls to prayer in the streets outside. Consumed by her vigil and his medical care, the woman is alone and desperate for any sign of life from her comatose husband. As her mind appears to unravel, so it becomes intensely clear-sighted. Now is her chance -- her first ever -- to speak without being censored. Empowered by her husband's silence, she steps out of the shadows and begins her confessional...Soldiers raid the flat. In the room she acts out her fantasies and her revenge. But always she comes back to the bedside, to pour out her love and her hate and her sexual desires, as though to a sang-e-sabur -- the black patience stone of Persian mythology. Finally, spurred to new heights of daring, she spills out her most explosive secret.

About this title

About the Author

Born in Afghanistan in 1962, Atiq Rahimi fled to France in 1984. There he has made a name as a writer, film and documentary maker of exceptional note. The film of his first novel, Earth and Ashes, was in the Official Selection at Cannes, 2004. He is adapting his second novel, A Thousand Rooms of Dream and Fear, for the screen. Since 2001, he has returned to Afghanistan many times to set up a Writers' House in Kabul and offer support and training to young writers and film-makers. He lives in Paris.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The room is bare. Bare of decoration. Except on the wall between the two windows, where someone has hung a small khanjar and, above the khanjar, a photo, of a man with a moustache. He is perhaps thirty years old. Curly hair. Square face, bracketed by a pair of neatly tended sideburns. His black eyes shine. They are small, separated by a hawklike nose. The man is not laughing, and yet seems as if he’s holding back a laugh. This gives him a strange expression, that of a man inwardly mocking those who look at him. The photo is in black and white, hand-colored in drab tones. Facing this photo, at the foot of a wall, the same man–older now–is lying on a red mattress on the floor. He has a beard. Pepper and salt. He is thinner. Too thin. Nothing but skin and bones. Pale.Wrinkled. His nose more hawklike than ever. He still isn’t laughing, and still looks strangely mocking. His mouth is half-open. His eyes, even smaller now, have retreated into their sockets. His gaze is fixed on the ceiling, on the exposed, blackened, rotting beams. His arms lie passive along his sides. Beneath the translucent skin, his veins like exhausted worms twine around the jutting bones of his body. On his left wrist he wears a wind-up watch, and on the ring finger a gold wedding band. A catheter drips clear liquid into the crook of his arm from a plastic pouch attached to the wall just above his head. The rest of his body is covered
by a long blue shirt, embroidered at collar and cuffs. His legs, stiff as two stakes, are buried under a white sheet. A dirty sheet. A hand, a woman’s hand, is resting on his chest, over his heart, moving up and down in time with his breath. The woman is seated. Legs pulled up and into her chest. Head bundled between her knees. Her dark hair–very dark, and long–flows over her slumped shoulders, echoing the regular movement of her arm.

About this edition

• Publisher: Chatto & Windus
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0701184167
• ISBN 13: 9780701184162
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 160