“Shortlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction, Ghenim’s second novel—published in 2020 in Tunisia, where she teaches linguistics and translation at Tunis University—imagines the early-20th-century feminist as a poor but idealistic young tutor for the wealthy Rassaa family, whose European-influenced patriarch is considered progressive for allowing his daughters to be educated... Amira Ghenim’s sweeping, multigenerational historical novel is not just a fictionalized version of his life, but a kaleidoscopic portrait of Tunisian history, from colonial rule to the Nazi occupation to the country’s independence and the political struggles that followed.”
Read the full review in The New York Times Book Review.
