Under the Tripoli Sky - Tapa blanda

'The reader feels he is peeking through a half-drawn curtain on a secret feminine world in a patriarchal society ... Excellent.' David Mills, SUNDAY TIMES ------ 'Beautifully simple and restrained prose.' Lucy Popescu, HUFFINGTON POST ------ 'It ought to be commended for its lack of sentimentality about this much-mythologized chapter of modern Libya.' Hasham Matar, TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT ------ 'A short but shimmering read.' Malcolm Forbes, NATIONAL

Tripoli in the 1960s. A sweltering, segregated society. Hadachinou is a lonely boy. His mother shares secrets with her best friend Jamila while his father prays at the mosque. Sneaking through the sun-drenched streets of Tripoli, he listens to the whispered stories of the women. He turns into an invisible witness to their repressed desires while becoming aware of his own. ------ Why Peirene chose to publish this book: 'This is a fascinating portrait of a closed society. On the surface this quiet vignette of a story could be read as gently nostalgic, but underneath the author reveals the seething tensions of a traditional city coming to terms with our modern world. The book gives us privileged access to a place where men and women live apart and have never learned to respect each other.' Meike Ziervogel, Publisher