Ahdaf Soueif's new novel is a story of what it is to be divided, poised between two lives. She explores the changing relationship between Egypt and Britain in the twentieth century and tells the compelling story of a doomed cross-cultural love affair, recreating the Romantic Hero of Byronic legend in an utterly original contemporary style.

It is the year 1900, and a trip to Egypt marks a new beginning for the recently widowed Lady Anna Winterbourne. There she meets and falls in love with Sharif Pasha al-Barudi, an Egyptian Nationalist, a man utterly committed to his country's cause. For Sharif, Anna at first represents the snobberies and vulgarities of colonialist Britain. For her, Sharif stands for the real, secret Egypt—an Egypt entirely hidden from her incurious compatriots. The couple fall in love, but fearfully. Can they both adjust to the reality of love between such conflicting cultures?

About the author
Ahdaf Soueif was born in Egypt in 1950. From the age of four to eight, she lived in England while her mother studied for her PhD at London University, learning to read from English classics, Little Grey Rabbit, and English comics, as well as The Arabian Nights.

She returned to England in 1973 to study for a doctorate in linguistics at Lancaster University. Her first book was a collection of short stories, Aisha, published in 1983 and shortlisted for The Guardian Fiction Award. She has since written In the Eye of the Sun (Bloomsbury 1992) and Sandpiper (Bloomsbury 1996). She is married to the poet and biographer Ian Hamilton, has two children and now divides her time between England and Egypt.

Among the many voices that now write across nationalities and across boundaries, Soueif's is an authentic Egyptian voice addressing itself directly to the Western reader.