Our understanding of the Arab world and mindset will benefit. This compassionately rendered story is peopled with characters with whom the American reader might be unfamiliar, but soon we begin to feel as if we inhabit their minds, experiencing the world as they do. The sensitive political issues of both periods, though, receive a straightforward, balanced treatment under Ms. The two women become fast friends, and together they unravel the beautiful story of how Anna and Sharif braved the disapproval of their people in order to make a life together.Īt times the author seems to dwell overlong on political discussions, and in some instances the shift from one time period to the other is abrupt. Filled with conflicting emotions, Isabel travels to Egypt to explore her heritage and meets Omar’s sister Amal. There she meets Sharif al-Baroudi, a fervent.

Lady Anna Winterbourne widow and orphan comes to Egypt during the period of British occupation under Lord Cromer. The first is set in the early years of the twentieth century.

Nearly a century later, American journalist Isabel Parkman, a descendant of Anna and Sharif, falls for Omar, an Egyptian conductor. If you like love stories, this is as good as it gets. She finds herself falling in love with both Egypt and Sharif Pasha al-Baroudi. In 1901 Anna Winterbourne leaves England for Egypt, then an outpost of the empire roiling with nationalist sentiment. Set in the early 1900s and in the 1990s, The Map of Love tells of two intertwined, cross-cultural love stories.

The Map of Love by Ahdaf Soueif