The Dark Side of Love

By Rafik Schami

A story of forbidden love set against the background of Arabic culture and endless feuds between clans.  An international bestseller translated by the award-winning Anthea Bell that has sold over 370,000 copies worldwide. Available for the first time in English from March 2009.

A dead man hangs from the portal of St Paul's Chapel in Damascus. He was a Muslim officer - and he was murdered. But when Detective Barudi sets out to interrogate the man's mysterious widow, the Secret Service takes the case away from him. Barudi continues to investigate clandestinely and discovers the murderer's motive: it is a blood feud between the Mustak and Shahin clans, reaching back to the beginnings of the 20th century. And, linked to it, a love story that can have no happy ending, for reconciliation has no place within the old tribal structures.

'The Dark Side of Love' is a novel which spans a century of Syrian history in which politics and religion continue to torment an entire people, while at the same time the stories from three generations tell of the courage of lovers who risk death sooner than deny their passions.

A heartfelt tribute to the author's hometown Damascus and a great and moving hymn to the power of love.

Also available as a hardback.

Rafik Schami was born in Damascus in 1946, came to Germany in 1971 and studied chemistry in Heidelberg.  Today he is the most successful German-speaking Arabic writer.  His novels have been translated into 21 languages and received numerous international awards.

Reviews

'A masterpiece! A marvel of prose that mixes myths, stories, tales,legends, and a wonderful love story... You will experience a Scheherazade in sparkling colours - a big love story, which does not spare us the sharp knives of grief.'

Die Zeit

'At last, the Great Arab Novel - appearing without ifs, buts,equivocations, metaphorical camouflage or hidden meanings..... Despite its length, the book is a compulsive read. We experience a long-awaited revelation of a society too long presented as a set of gruelling or exotic stereotypes. And the mythic elements endure, in the grist of many twisting tales. The continuing roll-call of revenge for old slights is exemplified by a piece of dialogue in which two brothers toast their success in avenging their father's death after 15 years, and one notes: 'A Bedouin would say: well done, lads, but why in such a hurry?'

Simon Louvish, The Independent, 31 July 2009. Read the full review here.

'There are no faux-magical pyrotechnics in the telling, but richly detailed characters working through real situations, characters whose inherited wounds the reader comes to care deeply about. Each is vividly drawn,with quiet and acute intelligence.'

Robin Yassin-Kassab, The Guardian, 16 May 2009. Read the full review here.

'With its feuds, lovers, murders, villains and assorted heroes and heroines, this is a novel to enjoy and to ponder.'

Claire Hopley, The Washington Times,  11 May 2009. Read the full review here.

'In1962, Rafik Schami witnessed the so-called honour killing of a SyrianMuslim woman who had fallen in love with a Christian. The final chapter of his novel The Dark Side of Love, originally published in German in2004 but only recently translated into English, amounts to a postscript in which Schami describes how the trauma of this event inspired him to write a novel on the myriad varieties of “forbidden love” in the Arab world. He spent decades grappling with the subject, writing dozens of books in the meantime, unable to find the appropriate approach.Finally, he decided: “Mosaic is the form for a story like this, I thought, a story with a thousand and one pieces in it, doing justice to life in Arabia with all its flaws. And like a mosaic, the further from the observer the picture appears, the smoother and more harmonious it will be.”

MA Orthofer, The National, 15 Oct 2009. Read the full review here.

'TheDark Side of Love is full-to-bursting with different varieties of passion: between the young and the old, those in first and second and third youths, married people and prostitutes. But the reader is always clear on the book’s two ultimate possibilities: Either our favorite lovers, Rana and Farid, will flee their homeland and make a life together, or they will fail.'
M. Lynx Qualey, Sycamore Review, 10 Oct 2009. Read the full review here.