The Map of Love is a beautifully written and profoundly engaging novel; one of my very favourites I read again and again. Egyptian writer Ahdaf Soueif weaves a love story, both past and present, with the the political history and current tensions in the place of her birth, Cairo, Egypt. Using different textual forms and voices, this tale set predominantly in 1900, is a story of worlds colliding as Lady Anna Winterbourne travels to Egypt where she falls in love with Sharif, an Egyptian Nationalist who has dedicated his life to the cause of his country and its liberation. Decades later, Isabel Parkman, a descendent of Anna and Sharif, makes the journey to Egypt with an old family trunk full of books and journals which reveals her ancestors’ story.

A passage from the book has always resonated for me and which speaks to the essence of this tale: the many meanings of “love” in Arabic:

“‘Hubb’ is love, ‘ishq’ is love that entwines two people together, ‘shaghaf’ is love that nests in the chambers of the heart. ‘hayam’ is love that wanders the earth, ‘teeh’ is love in which you lose yourself, ‘walah’ is love that carries sorrow within it, ‘sababah’ is love that exudes from your pores, ‘hawa’ is love the shares its name with ‘air’ and with ‘falling’, ‘gharam’ is love that is willing to pay the price.”