Spring
A Novel
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4.3 • 3 Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Three stories. One revolution. Eighteen days in Egypt.
Sami is no revolutionary. When the Arab Spring breaks out in 2011, he’s busy finishing school in Cairo and hiding his relationship with an American woman from his conservative mother, Suad. It’s a task that’s becoming impossible as events take a catastrophic turn.
But Suad won’t be fooled—her son has been distant and she knows it’s not about politics. Far away in the Nile Delta, she spends her days tending obsessively to her lemon grove, which is quickly becoming her last vestige of control. The only child who remains by her side is her daughter, but as she, too, gets involved with the protests, Suad realizes it won’t last for long.
There’s one person who knows exactly what’s going on in the family, and she wishes she didn’t. The maid, Jamila, already has too much to worry about as a refugee who’s lobbying for resettlement, expecting a baby, and looking for her missing husband. All she wants is stability, and that her dreams won’t be thwarted by the unrest sweeping a city she doesn’t belong to—a city that doesn’t even want her there.
As the country revolts against the regime it has always known, Jamila, Sami, and Suad find themselves caught in the whirlwind as they examine their own life choices and, in some cases, deal with the inevitable heartbreak that follows when revolution is not always what it seems.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Leila Rafei’s stirring debut pulsates with life. Set in early 2011, during the tumultuous days of Egypt’s Arab Spring, the novel follows the stories of three interconnected characters. Just blocks from the chaos in Tahrir Square, university student Sami lives with his pregnant American girlfriend. His conservative mother, who watches the unfolding civil unrest with a less-than-sympathetic eye, has no inkling of her son’s relationship. Meanwhile, Sudanese refugee Jamila grapples with an unforgiving immigration system while desperately searching for her husband. Spring is a deeply moving read about an unprecedented moment in history.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Rafei dramatizes the Egyptian Revolution of 2011 in her vivid debut. Sami, a rudderless student ignoring his devout Muslim mother's anxious phone calls, lives with his pregnant American girlfriend, Rose, in a seedy neighborhood on the edge of Tahrir Square. Two hours away in the textile-mill city of Mahalla, Sami's mother, Suad, lonely and bitter, wishes she had married her long-ago teenage crush, Gamal, instead of her philandering, perpetually absent husband, Mahmoud, an oilman in the Gulf. Jamila, a pregnant refugee from Sudan, wears a hijab and voluminous cloak as much for protection from men's prying eyes (and groping hands) as to obey the strictures of Islam. Having narrowly survived the massacre of her entire family in Sudan, as well as the brutality of those who smuggled her into Egypt, she is now seeking resettlement in the West to escape a man stalking her in her Cairo slum. As the characters each face their personal turmoil, the protests in Tahrir Square come to a head in especially powerful scenes. Rafei paints a gritty picture of life in sprawling, poverty-stricken sections of Cairo, in contrast to the splendid lifestyles of rich Egyptians and Westerners. Throughout, Rafei provides authentic details of local cuisine, vintage pop music, clothing, and the roar of the crowd ("It sounded melodic. Musical, even. Like the hook of an Umm Kalthoum song"). Readers will hope to see more from this talented author.
