Lost in Mecca is a powerful and heart-wrenching novel by Bothayna Al-Essa about loss and the search for meaning. The story follows a seven-year-old Kuwaiti boy who goes missing during the Hajj pilgrimage, introducing his parents to a darker side of Mecca. As they search for their child, the family uncovers painful truths about political and social realities that force them to confront their privilege. Through oscillating points of view, the novel exposes a world of crime that raises deeper questions about what justice means today and how our world determines the value of human life. Lost in Mecca is a stunning work of contemporary Arabic literature for its exploration of the contemporary human condition in a thought-provoking and an unforgettable way.
Sprache
Verlagsort
Maße
Höhe: 198 mm
Breite: 129 mm
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ISBN-13
978-1-78871-093-0 (9781788710930)
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Schweitzer Klassifikation
Bothayna Al-Essa is a Kuwaiti novelist, co-founder of Takween, and a full-time writer since 2013. She has published seventeen books, with Lost in Mecca and The Book Censor's Library earning international recognition. The Book Censor's Library won the Sharjah Prize for Women's Literature, was shortlisted for the 2024 National Book Award for Translated Literature, and featured in The Times' must-read books. It has also become one of the most widely sold foreign rights titles from Restless Books, with multiple translations underway. Her novel All Things was shortlisted for the Sheikh Zayed Book Award, and her works have been translated into several languages. In addition to fiction, Al-Essa has written on the craft of writing and led literary workshops across the Arab world. Nada Faris is a Kuwaiti writer, creative writing teacher, and literary translator. In 2018, she received an Arab Woman Award from Harper's Bazaar Arabia in the category of Inspirational Woman for her impact on Kuwait's creative landscape . She is an Honorary Fellow in Writing at the University of Iowa's International Writing Program (IWP), having participated in the Fall 2013 residency . Additionally, she is an alumna of the U.S. Department of State's International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP), having taken part in the April 2018 program titled "Empowering Youth Through the Performing Arts" .
Faris holds an MFA in Creative Writing, with a concentration in poetry and literary translation, from Columbia University, which she completed in 2020 . She is the author of several books across different genres, including Mischief Diary (HBKU Press, 2018), a collection of humorous short stories, and Fountain of Youth, which was a semi-finalist in the 2016 Vine Leaves Vignette Collection Award . Her collaboration with photographer Maha Alasaker resulted in Women of Kuwait (Daylight, 2019), a work that was recognized as a finalist for the Lucie Photobook Award.
Faris's shorter works have appeared in various publications, including The Norton Anthology of Hint Fiction, Gulf Coast Journal, Indianapolis Review, Nimrod, Tribes, One Jacar, The American Journal of Poetry, and more.
Her debut literary translation, Lost in Mecca (DarArab, 2024), is the English rendition of Bothayna Al-Essa's Arabic novel ????? ?????. This translation was shortlisted for the 2024 Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation and was named a Notable Translation by World Literature Today.
