No, this is not the Lebanese actress-singer; this is Razan Naim al-Maghrabi, a Libyan writer who has published five collections of short stories and two novels.*
To learn more about her, you can read her blog, although it hasn’t been updated much this year.
Thus far, on GoodReads, al-Maghrabi seems to be the only one who’s rated her novel, although she’s quite open about it. She gave it five stars.
According to IPAF organizers, Women of Wind can be summed up as such:
Women of Wind is a moving story of female friendship and the secret lives of women. It tells the story of a Moroccan servant girl who requests the help of the women in her life to help raise enough money secure a passage on a smugglers’ ship. Before the heroine embarks on her harrowing voyage, the narrative weaves together the stories of the different women who help her, from the Iraqi woman who acts as a go-between between the heroine and the smugglers, to a female novelist and a little girl whose mother has abandoned her.
Reviews
‘Ala Madar Al-Hamal
Collected reviews (on the author’s blog)
Women of Wind
Previously profiled: Egyptian Miral al-Tahawy, longlisted for her Brooklyn Heights, Bensalam Himmich, for My Tormentor, Fawaz Haddad, for God’s Soldiers, Khairy Shalaby, for Istasia, Raja Alem for The Doves’ Necklace, Renee Hayek for A Short Life, Waciny Laredj for The Andalucian House, Maha Hassan for Secret Rope, Mohammad Achaari for The Arch and the Butterfly, Maqbul Moussa Al-Alawi for Turmoil in Jeddah, and Khaled al-Berry for Middle Eastern Dance.
See the full longlist here.
*Yes, sorry, we’re now getting into writers about whom I know little or nothing. If you have something to add, of course…!
It seems that none of the arab writer’s blogs have been updated much this year) and last year as well
I think blogging has become unfashionable/tiresome, which is perhaps why I took it up…
))))