My Name Is Salma
  • Published: 15 July 2010
  • ISBN: 9780552776912
  • Imprint: Black Swan
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 336
  • RRP: $24.00

My Name Is Salma

Formats & editions
EBook
1 Jul 2010
Paperback
15 Jul 2010
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As contemporary as today's headlines and as timeless as love and hate - a young Muslim asylum-seeker in England runs from a brother who wants to commit honour killing

When Salma becomes pregnant before marriage in her small village in the Levant, her innocent days playing the pipe for her goats are gone for ever. She is swept into prison for her own protection. To the sound of her screams, her newborn baby daughter is snatched away.

In the middle of the most English of towns, Exeter, she learns good manners from her landlady, and settles down with an Englishman. But deep in her heart the cries of her baby daughter still echo. When she can bear them no longer, she goes back to her village to find her. It is a journey that will change everything - and nothing.

Slipping back and forth between the olive groves of the Levant and the rain-slicked pavements of Exeter, My Name is Salma is a searing portrayal of a woman's courage in the face of insurmountable odds.
  • Published: 15 July 2010
  • ISBN: 9780552776912
  • Imprint: Black Swan
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 336
  • RRP: $24.00
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About the author

Fadia Faqir

Fadia Faqir is a Jordanian/British writer and defender of human rights, especially women's rights in the Arab world. She is the author of two other novels, Nisanit and Pillars of Salt. In 1990 the University of East Anglia awarded her the first Ph.D in Critical and Creative Writing. Brought up in Amman she now lives with her husband in Durham.

Praise for My Name Is Salma

Fadia Faqir's captivating new novel deals with the timeless themes of unforgiveness, friendship and travel. Exquisitely woven, laced with humour and social awareness, it hums with the futility of erasing the past.

Leila Aboulelah, author of THE MINARET

This is a beautiful book, written in vivid, tender prose, about creating a new world when you have lost everything that matters. Salma is an unforgettable character, fierce and loving, veering between self-hatred and a sense of her own strength, touching and funny by terms. Now I have finished the book, I miss her

Vividly expresses the horror of lives oppressed by archaic patriarchal honour codes

Financial Times

Exquisite ... As Salma's life moves toward its inevitable climax, readers will be transfixed

US Library Journal

Tender and perceptive

Good Housekeeping

This tender and vivid novel of an exiled Arab woman's life in Britain, and memories of trauma at home, connects desert to Devon with warmth and wit

Independent