Fadi Zaghmout

The Bride of Amman, a huge and controversial bestseller when first published in Arabic, takes a sharp-eyed look at the intersecting lives of four women and one gay man in Jordan's historic capital, Amman-a city deeply imbued with its nation's traditions and taboos. When Rana finds herself not only falling for a man of the wrong faith, but also getting into trouble with him, where can they go to escape? Can Hayat's secret liaisons really suppress the memories of her abusive father? When Ali is pressured by society's homophobia into a fake heterosexual marriage, how long can he maintain the illusion? And when spinsterhood and divorce spell social catastrophe, is living a lie truly the best option for Leila? What must she do to avoid reaching her 'expiry date' at the age thirty like her sister Salma, Jordan's secret blogger and a self-confessed spinster with a plot up her sleeve to defy her city's prejudices? These five young lives come together and come apart in ways that are distinctly modern yet as unique and timeless as Amman itself.

The Bride of Amman

Although the Arabic world is as diverse as any other region, customs and traditions endure. Injustices continue. And then there is Laila. Trapped in a marriage to a man she finds physically revolting, Laila begins to realize secret truths about her sexuality, about her very identity as a modern Jordanian woman. "Good" Arab women may have occasional lurid fantasies about dominating men in bed... but Laila actually finds the strength to do it. And when she dies suddenly in an encounter with a lover, the stakes for the survivors become a matter of life and death. In Laila, Fadi Zaghmout gives voice to the Arab woman to put men in her society on trial.

Laila

Ce roman se situe à Amman, en Jordanie. Quatre jeunes femmes et un jeune homme — Hayat, Rana, Salma, Leila et Ali — prennent la parole tour à tour pour dire leurs souffrances et leurs interrogations devant les situations dramatiques et les choix de vie auxquels leur destin les confronte. Face à une société conservatrice qui les contraint et les humilie, on voit s’affirmer, à travers drames et vicissitudes, leur être profond et leur volonté de liberté. Au-delà d’une évocation de la condition des femmes : soumission au chef de famille, primauté du mariage sur les études, importance de la virginité, l’Épouse d’Amman est un des premiers romans à parler ouvertement des questions LGBT dans le monde arabe. À PROPOS DES AUTEURS Fadi Zaghmout, titulaire d'un diplôme d'écriture créative et de pensée critique de l'université du Sussex, est un intellectuel jordanien habitant à Dubaï et spécialisé dans les questions de genre dans le monde arabe. Il tient depuis 2006 un blog traitant de différents sujets de société au Moyen-Orient : fadizaghmout.com, avec des analyses en anglais et en arabe. Il est particulièrement attentif à la condition des femmes et des minorités sexuelle. 'Arous 'Amman ("L'épouse d'Amman") est son premier roman. Il a été suivi par Jenna 'Ala al-'Ard ("le Paradis sur Terre") et Layla w Al-Hamal ("Leila et l'agneau"). Fadi Zaghmout participe aussi à des conférences dans le monde arabe, la dernière et la plus important ayant été la Nuqat 2019 Regional Conference : The State of the Elastic Mind, au cours de laquelle il a traité de la question du genre et préenté son prochain projet littéraire : un ouvrage de science-fiction mettant en scène un monde où le genre est fondé sur la taille physique. Davide Knecht est ingénieur et traducteur freelance, titulaire d’un master en linguistique (INALCO) qui a porté sur l'analyse de la diglossie arabe classique – arabe dialectal dans les médias au Liban. Il a collaboré à la version italienne de "Nani in festa. Iconografia, religione e politica a Ostia durante il secondo triumvirato" (Ch. Bocherens, éd.), Edipuglia, Bari - S.Spirito, 2012. Il a en outre effectué des traductions dans le cadre de plusieurs bénévolats en relation avec les migrants ainsi que dans le cadre de son poste chez "YCI Education".

L'Épouse d'Amman

"The year: sometime in the 2090s. The location: Jordan. Aging is reversible thanks to major advances in bioscience and nanotechnology. But in a world where eternal youth has become a reality, complications arise. Journalist Janna Abdallah is at the forefront of these changes: her brother Jamal contributed to many of the medical advances that have brought such profound changes to humanity over the past few decades, yet he has chosen to forego age suppression in order to experience a natural death. Because reproduction is strictly regulated, the opportunity to create new life throws the Abdallah family into turmoil. Fadi Zaghmout's best-selling debut novel The Bride of Amman was groundbreaking for its intimate, sympathetic treatment of women's issues, homosexuality, and marriage in the Middle East. Heaven on Earth is no less revolutionary, at once a searingly personal account of one family's struggle to embrace the future that is now, and also a look at the way Jordanian society has had to reimagine itself at the end of the twenty-first century."--Back cover.

Fadi Zaghmout

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