Lina Huyan Elhassan’s ‘Diamonds and Women’

From the International Prize for Arabic Fiction official biography and book description:

Lina Huyan Elhassan is a Syrian novelist, born in 1975. She obtained a Diploma in Advanced Philosophy Studies from the Damascus University. She currently lives in Lebanon and has worked as a journalist since 2003. She has published nine works of fiction and non-fiction, including novels, poetry and studies of the Syrian desert. She took part in the 2010 nadwa hosted by the International Prize for Arabic Fiction.

Diamonds and Women describes two generations of Arab exiles, revealing the secret, privileged world of Arab emigrants and showing their influence on their chosen cities of Paris, Sao Paolo and Damascus. The novel focuses particularly on Syrians living in Paris and Sao Paolo from the beginning of the 20th century to the 1970s and 1980s and the experiences of the heroine, Almaz, as she witnesses key points of Arab social and political history in the modern era.