At the end of the fifteenth century, the keys to Granada, the last Muslim state in the Iberian Peninsula, have been handed over to the Christian king and queen. Abu Jaafar the bookbinder watches Christopher Columbus and his entourage in a triumphant parade of exotic plants, animals, and human captives from the Americas. But as Spain celebrates the acquisition of a new world, Muslims and Jews throughout the country are mourning the loss of an old one, and now face confiscations, forced conversions, and expulsions. As the new masters of Granada burn books, Abu Jaafar quietly moves his rich library out of town, while still preparing for the marriage of his granddaughter Saleema to his apprentice Saad. Radwa Ashour skillfully weaves a history of Granadan rule and the Andalusian Arab world into a novel that evokes cultural loss and the disappearance of a vanquished population.
Granada
At the end of the fifteenth century, the keys to Granada, the last Muslim state in the Iberian Peninsula, have been handed over to the Christian king
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Radwa Ashour, a highly acclaimed Egyptian writer and scholar, is the author of more than fifteen books of fiction, memoir, and criticism; among them, Siraaj and Granada have been published in English. She is a recipient of the Constantine Cavafy Prize for Literature. Barbara Romaine has been teaching Arabic for nearly two decades, currently at Villanova University. Her other translations include Bahaa Taher’s novel Aunt Safiyya and the Monastery and Radwa Ashour’s Siraaj. She received an NEA fellowship to support the translation of Specters.
