Arabesques: a Novel

Plot

Anton Shammas chronicles his life as an Israeli Christian Arab, dramatizing the bitter clash of traditions in a village on the Galilee just after 1948 and his search for personal identity, which leads through Paris to its climax in Iowa City

From Publishers Weekly
Employing two narrators, this semi-autobiographical "elaborate tapestry" by an Israeli Arab interweaves the 150-year history of the Shammas clan in Fassuta, a village in northern Israel, with contemporary scenes in Paris and at the University of Iowa. PW said, "The multilayered pyrotechnics are dazzling and sophisticated but may render this work impenetrable for many American readers."
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Library Journal
These two novels reflect the turmoil in the divided land from which they stem. Kaniuk, an Israeli Jew, centers the Arab-Israeli conflict in the mind of a "good Arab," the son of an Israeli heroine and a Palestinian scholar. His "confessions," as fantastical as his origins, elicit the truth that "in a tragedy there isn't one justice but two" and leaves him as divided as he was at birth. Shammas, an Israeli Arab and a Christian, moves in the other direction: interlacing myth, history, and familiar memories, he creates a tale that takes him toward some resolution of the disparate sources of his own identity. Depicting men and women as colorful as reality itself, he portrays Palestinians in a light that will surprise and please many American readers. Both novels manifest the literary influence of Jorge Luis Borges and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and both deserve wide readership. L.M. Lewis, Eastern Kentucky Univ., Richmond
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
"[A] 'vibrant and original' work." -- Kirkus Reviews, "Back in Print" section
Product Description
Available again, Arabesques is a classic, complex novel of identity, memory, and history in the Middle East and points beyond-including Iowa and New York City. Anton Shammas, the first Arab to write a novel in Hebrew, has given us a riveting look at a people we hear too little about: Palestinian Christians. Arabesques was chosen as one of the best books of 1988 by the editors of the New York Times Book Review.
Language Notes
Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Hebrew
From the Inside Flap
"Arabesques is a classic of the exploration of identity. . . . A Palestinian master of Hebrew, living at the seam between Jews and Arabs, between the ancient and the modern, between loyalties and appetites, Shammas has written beautifully about his search for design. He transforms fact into fantasy without changing a thing."--Leon Wieseltier
From the Back Cover
"Arabesques is a classic of the exploration of identity. . . . A Palestinian master of Hebrew, living at the seam between Jews and Arabs, between the ancient and the modern, between loyalties and appetites, Shammas has written beautifully about his search for design. He transforms fact into fantasy without changing a thing."-Leon Wieseltier
About the Author
Anton Shammas is Professor of Near Eastern Studies and Comparative Literature at the University of Michigan.