Brooklyn Heights (book)

Not to be confused with Brooklyn Heights: A Personal Memoir.
First edition

Brooklyn Heights is the fourth novel by Egyptian writer Miral al-Tahawy.[1] It was shortlisted for the Arabic Booker Prize for 2011[2] and won the 2010 Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature[3][4] The novel, released in Arabic in 2010, was published in an English translation by Sameh Salim from the American University in Cairo Press the following year.[5] Al-Tahawy holds a doctorate in Arabic literature from Cairo University and teaches at Arizona State University in Phoenix, Arizona.[1]

Miral Al-Tahawy, a member of the Al-Hanadi tribe, grew up in a conservative Bedouin village in the eastern Nile Delta.[1] Although "Brooklyn Heights" takes place in the present day, soon after President Obama’s election in 2008, her family life and the influence of Bedouin tribal customs, are told in flashbacks. The highly autobiographical novel relates the emigrant experience in New York City of an Egyptian Bedouin woman and her son.[6]

  1. ^ a b c Abdalla F. Hassan, "Making the Life of a Modern Nomad into Literature," January 4, 2012, "The New York Times"
  2. ^ "Arabic Booker Prize shortlist announced". Hala Khalaf. The NationalDecember 9, 2010
  3. ^ "Book review: A View from ‘Brooklyn Heights’ ". Ahram Online.
  4. ^ "Ezzat El Kamhawi Awarded 2012 Naguib Mahfouz Medal". Alex Mutter. Publishing Perspectives. December 12, 2012
  5. ^ "Book review ". Mmegi Online.
  6. ^ "Deterritorialization of Belonging: Between Home and Unhomely in Miral al-Tahawy's Brooklyn Heights and Salman Natur's She, the Autumn, and Me". Archived 2015-01-21 at the Wayback Machine Journal of Levantine Studies. Vol. 3, No. 2 Winter 2013.