AN UNLASTING HOME

For readers of Ann Patchett, Jhumpa Lahiri, Elena Ferrante, and Ahdaf Soueif.

An Unlasting Home is a multigenerational saga which spans Lebanon, Iraq, India, the United States, and Kuwait to bring to life the triumphs and failures of three generations of Arab women. In 2013, Sara is a philosophy professor at Kuwait University, having returned to Kuwait from Berkeley in the wake of her mother's sudden death eleven years earlier. Her main companions are her grandmother's talking parrot, Bebe
Mitu; the family cook, Aasif; and Maria, her childhood ayah and the one person who has always been there for her.
When she is faced with the twin calamities of an accusation of blasphemy (for teaching Nietzsche in her Intro to Philosophy course), which carries with it the threat of execution, and Maria's sudden heart-attack, Sara begins to unravel. As the days leading up to her trial tick down, Sara finds herself retracing the past, excavating what she remembers of her own choices and those of the women who made her, hoping that if she can understand what led her home in the first place, she might figure out how to leave behind this country she no longer recognizes—if it is not too late.

Mai Al-Nakib was born in Kuwait, but spent the first six years of her life in London, Edinburgh, and St. Louis, Missouri. She holds a PhD in English from Brown University and is an associate professor of English and comparative literature at Kuwait University. Her short story collection, The Hidden Light of Objects, was published by Bloomsbury Qatar in 2014. It won the Edinburgh International Book Festival's 2014 First Book
Award. Her stories and essays have been widely published, and she is a frequent contributor to World Literature Today and the BBC. She divides her time between Kuwait and Greece.