Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The Pistachio Seller

The Pistachio Seller

Bassiouney, Reem
Nusairi, Osman

Paperback

General FictionLiterary Fiction

Publisher Price: $19.95

ISBN10: 0815610319
ISBN13: 9780815610311
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
Published: Nov 29 2013
Pages: 176
Weight: 0.55
Height: 0.30 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English

It was Saturday. I remember. And while he was standing on a step ladder in the hall, changing a light bulb in the faint light coming through the window, I decided to love him. So begins this wonderfully exuberant novel of quixotic adolescent longing and the enduring search for self. Set in middle class urban Egypt, the story chronicles young Wafaa's struggle to come to terms with her own sexuality and her romantic infatuation with her cousin Ashraf, a spoiled and confident young Egyptian who was educated in England. Ashraf's worldliness and carefree attitudes stand in sharp contrast to Wafaa's provincial Islamic piousness. As both mature they find outside events encroaching upon their sheltered lives, forcing each to confront challenges to their youthful ideologies. Ashraf is chastened by an economic turnaround that takes him to the United States as an impoverished immigrant, and Wafaa begins to question her rigid fundamentalist beliefs that seem increasingly inadequate to make sense of the complex world around her.

Reem Bassiouney effortlessly captures the voices of her characters, bringing them to life and allowing the reader to be fully immersed in their lives as they unfold in moving, often funny, and eventually triumphant ways. The Pistachio Seller introduces Bassiouney's work to an English audience for the first time.

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