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Mohrbooks Literary Agency
Sebastian Ritscher
Original language
English
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NO LAND TO LIGHT ON

Yara Zgheib

Exit West meets An American Marriage in this breathtaking and evocative novel about a young Syrian couple in the throes of new love, on the cusp of their bright future... when a travel ban rips them apart on the eve of their son's birth.
Hadi and Sama are a young Syrian couple flying high on a whirlwind love, dreaming up a life in the country that brought them together. She had come to Boston years before chasing dreams of a bigger life; he'd landed there as a sponsored refugee from a bloody civil war. Now, they are giddily awaiting the birth of their son, a boy whose native language would be freedom and belonging.

When Sama is five months pregnant, Hadi's father dies suddenly in Jordan, the night before his visa appointment at the embassy. Hadi flies back for the funeral, promising his wife that he'll only be gone for a few days. On the day his flight is due to arrive in Boston, Sama is waiting for him at the airport, eager to bring him back home. But as the minutes and then hours pass, she continues to wait, unaware that Hadi has been stopped at the border and detained for questioning, trapped in a timeless, nightmarish limbo.

Worlds apart, suspended between hope and disillusion as hours become days become weeks, Sama and Hadi yearn for a way back to each other, and to the life they'd dreamed up together. But does that life exist anymore, or was it only an illusion?

Achingly intimate yet poignantly universal, No Land to Light On is the story of a family caught up in forces beyond their control, fighting for the freedom and home they found in one another.
This is a breathtaking love story with the urgency of a thriller and universal themes of home and belonging.

Yara Zgheib is the author of the critically acclaimed The Girls at 17 Swann Street, which was a People pick for best new books and received rave reviews from The New York Times Book Review, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, Booklist, and Bustle. She is a Fulbright scholar with a master's degree in security studies from Georgetown University and a PhD in international affairs in diplomacy from Centre d' Études Diplomatiques et Stratégiques in Paris. She is fluent in English, Arabic, French, and Spanish.
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Published 2022-01-04

Comments

Zgheib writes so lyrically about rootlessness, separation and a fierce longing for home that it makes the tragedy of war that much easier to bear. Sama and Hadi will always hold a special place in my heart.

UK: Allen & Unwin UK

Zgheib has created a tense, moving novel about the meaning of home, the risks of exile, the power of nations, and the power of love.

A masterful story of tragedy and redemption, an entire history told through the prism of a single Syrian couple, beginning and ending with love.

In elegant prose, Zgheib skillfully mingles her protagonists' memories with a nail-biting account of their 2017 ordeal to craft narrative rich in metaphors and complex, believable characters. Read more...

Written in soul-searing prose, No Land to Light On is an essential, compassionate story.