Laila

Although the Arabic world is as diverse as any other region, customs and traditions endure. Injustices continue. And then there is Laila. Trapped in a marriage to a man she finds physically revolting, Laila begins to realize secret truths about her sexuality, about her very identity as a modern Jordanian woman. “Good” Arab women may have occasional lurid fantasies about dominating men in bed … but Laila actually finds the strength to do it. And when she dies suddenly in an encounter with a lover, the stakes for the survivors become a matter of life and death. In Laila, Fadi Zaghmout gives voice to the Arab woman to put men in her society on trial.

©2020 Fadi Zaghmout. Translation © 2020 by Hajer Almosleh. Originally published in Arabic by Kotob Khan, Cairo. © 2018 by Fadi Zaghmout (P)2022 Blackstone Publishing