Mirage

by Bandula Chandraratna

Book Overview

Within a closed Saudi Arabia kingdom, an unexceptional man, Sayeed, finds happiness with Lalifa, a girl who might have been beyond his reach had widowhood and misfortune not brought her within it. But soon the struggle to make a decent life for his new wife and her child amidst heat, dirt, and squalor form the backdrop of tragedy, one fueled by pretty jealousy, sexual desire, and religious fervor.

Mirage was published in England...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1574231952
• ISBN13: 9781574231953
• Release Date: December 2003
• Publisher: Black Sparrow Press
• Length: 214 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.2" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

A Look Inside an Alien World

The title is the key to understanding Mirage. Chapters 1-23 are indeed a mirage, an ancient land of milk and honey, a delicate pastoral simplicity, a precarious balance of old and new as oil wealth and Westernization impinge of bedrock religious values. But in Chapters 24-25, the reality underlying the mirage erupts with all the fierce violence that characterizes much of the region today. Chandraratna got it right - weeks, months, perhaps years of tranquility suddenly shattered by piercing screams from an honor killing wherein the victim of the crime is executed. To confront another face of this reality from a Western perspective, read Hilary Mantel's (1988) Eight Months on Ghazzah Street: A Novel, a chilling experience which, like Mirage, may leave you puzzled until you know that alien world.