A review by befriendtheshadow
\u202bعناق عند جسر بروكلين\u202c by Ezzedine C. Fishere, عزالدين شكري فشير

4.0

Shortlisted for the 2012 Arab Booker Prize, "Embrace on Brooklyn Bridge" tells the story of cosmopolitan Arabs living in the US. Daoud is preparing a dinner party in new York for his granddaughter who is turning 21. Each of the chapters is told from the perspective of one of the guests as they make their way to the party. And through their eyes is the complex mosaic of experiences of being an exiled Arab in post-9/11 America. This is a comfortable read. Izz al-Deen Shukri Fashir writes in an easy to read standard Arabic. There isn't so much a plot as a mood that runs through the book, stringing the stories together in a kaleidoscope. I enjoyed parts of it, but there were a few chapters that felt forced or cliched (the fundamentalist guy), and one or two where nothing really happens. A couple of them really stood out for me (the cross cultural couple where neither could live in the world of the other, or the human rights lawyer with anger management issues). I also got the impression that though this was written in Arabic, something about the language felt like it could have been written originally in English. A good read, and the English translation should be released in 2012 or early 2013.