The Girl with Braided Hair

Book excerpt: WINNER OF THE SAIF GHOBASH BANIPAL PRIZE FOR ARABIC LITERARY TRANSLATION LONGLISTED FOR THE 2022 DUBLIN LITERARY AWARD LONGLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL PRIZE FOR ARABIC FICTION The lives of two women living centuries apart are connected by an enigmatic painting in this mesmerizing debut based on historical events Art historian, Yasmine, is restoring an unsigned portrait of a strikingly beautiful girl from the Napoleonic Era, when she discovers that the artist has embedded a lock of hair into the painting, something highly unusual. The mysterious painting came into the museum’s possession without record, and Yasmine becomes consumed by the secret concealed within this captivating work. Meanwhile, at the close of the French Campaign in Egypt, sixteen-year-old Zeinab, the daughter of a prominent sheikh, is drawn into French high society when Napoleon himself requests her presence. Enamored by the foreign customs of the Europeans, she finds herself on a dangerous path, one that may ostracize her from her family and culture. Seamlessly merging fiction with history, art, and politics, modern day Cairo with its opulent past, this compelling story of two women caught between worlds and entangled in matters of the heart launches an entrancing new literary voice.