Arriving into Absence: Hisham Matar’s Anatomy of a Disappearance

"When the gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers."Only Oscar Wilde could have come up with something so bleak and so subversive. And so true, as Nuri el- Alfi, would have added in writer Hisham Matar's poignant bildungsroman Anatomy of a Disappearance.Living in Cairo, young Nuri, finds himself unable to fully comprehend his …

Book Beginnings and Friday 56

Book Beginnings is a meme hosted by Rose City Reader in which you share the first sentence of the book that you are currently reading.Here's mine from Anthony Gilbert's The Body on the Beam:During the spring of last year the police were greatly perplexed by a violent death occurring at No. 39 Menzies Street.In Friday 56 …