Memory in The Flesh

Download or read book Memory in The Flesh written by Ahlam Mosteghanemi and published by American Univ in Cairo Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This prize-winning novel, the first to be written by an Algerian woman in Arabic, is set against Algeria's struggle against foreign domination as well as its post-independence struggle with itself and the fate of revolutionary ideals in a post-revolutionary society. The story, spanning more than four decades of Algerian history, from the 1940s to the 1980s, revolves around a love affair between Khaled, the middle-aged militant who turns to painting after losing his left arm in the struggle, and Hayat, the fiction writer and young daughter of his friend the freedom fighter Si Taher, all brilliantly told through Khaled's voice. It was features such as this convincing embodiment of a male voice alongside narrative techniques in which the author subtly joins the achievements of world literature with that of local storytelling and traditional modes of narration that particularly impressed the judges who awarded this novel the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature.