Improvisations on a Missing String

Nazik Saba Yared’s novel, Improvisations on a Missing String, tells the story of Saada Rayyis, who, after a mastectomy and prior to another operation which she may not survive, considers the course of her life with the purpose of understanding not only where she has been, but also where she is going.

In her attempt to cope with complex feelings of alienation and insecurity, she struggles against traditional expectations in order to secure a sense of belonging and fulfillment—but always on her own terms.

From her childhood in Palestine, through her university studies in Cairo, and finally as a teacher in Beirut, we follow the development of this independent woman as she comes to terms with her feelings about family, lovers, politics, art, and finally her own aspirations for belonging.

NAZIK SABA YARED is a part-time professor at the Lebanese American University in Beirut. A native of Jerusalem, she received her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Arabic literature from the American Univer sity of Beirut. She has published fifteen fiction and nonfiction books and received the Chevalier de L’Ordre des Palmes Academiques from the French government.

STUART A. HANCOX, originally of London, England, is presently a doctoral candidate in comparative literature at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. He received the University of Arkansas Press Award for translation of Arabic fiction in 1996. He has also received the Gary Wilson Award in Translation for 1995 and 1996.