ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks to Margaret Stead, whose help I am ever grateful for.
A NOTE ON THE AUTHOR
Hanan al-Shaykh is one of the contemporary Arab world’s most acclaimed writers. She was born in Lebanon and brought up in Beirut, before going to Cairo to receive her education. She was a successful journalist in Cairo and in Beirut, then later lived in the Arabian Gulf, before moving to London. She is the author of the collection I Sweep the Sun off Rooftops and her novels include The Story of Zahra, Women of Sand and Myrrh, Beirut Blues and, most recently, Only in London, which was shortlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. She lives in London.
A NOTE ON THE TRANSLATOR
Roger Allen has taught Arabic literature at the University of Pennsylvania since 1968. He has written numerous general studies on Arabic literature, both modern and pre-modern. He has also edited several specialist journals in the field and translated into English works by many Arab authors, including Naguib Mahfouz.
Translation copyright © 2009 by Hanan al-Shaykh
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Pantheon Books,
a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random
Dar Al Adab, Beirut, in 2005. This translation originally published in Great
Britain by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, London.
The photograph copyright © Gautier Deblonde/NB Pictures
and reproduced by permission. All other photographs and images are
reproduced courtesy of the author.
Pantheon Books and colophon are registered trademarks of
Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
[Hikayati sharhun yatul. English]
The locust and the bird : my mother’s story / Hanan al-Shaykh.
p. cm.
Based on the author’s recordings of her illiterate mother’s narration of
different stages of her life.
eISBN: 978-0-307-37836-1
1. Kamilah, d. 2001. 2. Muslim women—Lebanon—Biography.
3. Shaykh, Hanan—Family. 4. Beirut (Lebanon)—Social life and
PJ7862.H356Z8713 2009 892.7′8609—dc22 [b] 2008054683
www.pantheonbooks.com
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