Rawan's Middle Eastern Fiction Reading Group

Welcome back lovers of Middle Eastern Fiction! This Reading Group will explore powerful and complex voices from the Middle East, both contemporary and classic, from a region that has an ancient, rich literary tradition. We will delve into novels that illuminate issues of identity, exile, resistance and belonging , told by authors whose work challenges and enriches our understanding of the Middle East and its people.

In April, Rawan has selected Dima Wannous' The Frightened Ones (translated by Elisabeth Jaquette), a haunting tale of revolution, displacement, and delusional love. Finalist for the 2018 International Prize for Arabic Fiction and Winner of the English Pen award, this novel is an urgent study into the collective psychology of terror and trauma under Bashar Al-Assad's regime in Syria.

Suleima and Nassim first meet in their therapist’s tiny waiting room in Damascus. In the city’s atmosphere of surveillance and anxiety, they begin a tenuous relationship. With Naseem now seeking refuge in Germany, he sends Suleima the unfinished manuscript of his novel - and what she reads will throw her entire identity into question. Time begins to fold in on itself, her sense of identity unravels, she has no idea what to trust – Naseem’s pages, her own memory – both – or neither? Who is the unnamed woman in the book, and just what is Naseem trying to say? As she attempts to solve the mystery of her lover’s manuscript, she must confront what has happened to her family, to her country, and start to make sense of who she is and what she has become.

Bold, contemporary, and told with captivating immediacy, The Frightened Ones is an intimate exploration of what it means to survive under psychological pressure and fear during the Assad regime.

"I felt like I didn’t exist, and it frightened me. I’d begun seeing everything through a lens of terror, and felt like nothing existed beyond my own body. I felt my mother wasn’t there any more, like Fouad, who had disappeared, or my father, who had passed away, or Naseem. Or maybe they existed somewhere separate from me, and did not sense my existence."