Novel
The Bridges of Constantine
ذاكرة الجسد
Ahlam Mosteghanemi · 1993
Synopsis
Khaled, a veteran of the war of independence, in which he lost an arm, lives in Paris, where he has become a painter. One day Hayat appears, the daughter of a comrade-in-arms killed during the war. She awakens in him the memory of the struggle and of Constantine, and he falls in love with her. The arrival of Ziad, a Palestinian poet and fighter and a friend of Khaled, soon complicates their story.
Context
The novel appeared in Beirut in 1993 and became a bookshop success throughout the Arab world. It opens a trilogy continued in 1997 and 2003, around the same character. Its English translation appeared in Cairo in 2000 under the title Memory in the Flesh, was revised in 2003, then retranslated by Raphael Cohen under the title The Bridges of Constantine, in London, in 2013; Mohamed Mokeddem translated it into French for Albin Michel in 2002.
Who it is for
A novel of love and exile in lyrical prose, addressed by Khaled to the woman he loves, readable in French and in English.
Prizes and reception
Nour Foundation prize in 1993 and Naguib Mahfouz Medal in 1998; the novel that made its author famous in the Arab countries.
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