Silence is a Sense
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- 65,00 kr
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- 65,00 kr
Utgivarens beskrivning
A SUNDAY TIMES STYLE RECOMMEND
‘Lyrical, moving, revealing’ TRACY CHEVALIER
‘Brilliant’ NIKITA LALWANI
‘Such beautiful writing… A little bit Rear Window, a little bit Home Fire, a little bit Shameless. I loved it' LOUISA YOUNG
‘Daring and devastating’ FIONA MOZLEY
A young woman spends her days watching the neighbours through their windows. She is a refugee, who has seen the failure of the Arab Spring in her homeland and who has been traumatized into silence by her brutal journey from Syria to Britain.
As an outsider, a mute voyeur, she sees everything, she hears everything: the love, the fighting, the families, the secrets, the lies, the sex, the shame. Slowly drawn into the community that surrounds her, she begins to come to terms with all she has lost. After a brutal attack on the local mosque, she realises she is the only witness to the truth behind the violence. But will she finally speak of all she's seen?
Rear Window meets Exit West, this beautifully written novel tells the powerful story of one woman’s trauma and her gradual healing.
Reviews
‘Compelling and original, Silence Is a Sense is uncomfortably close to the bone, depicting a country riven by racism and violence’ OBSERVER
‘Silence is a Sense is a fierce novel. The prose is ferocious, the pace is ferocious… Layla AlAmmar has skilfully woven a narrative of memory and grief with an illuminating social critique of the position of asylum seekers within contemporary British society. It is daring and devastating’ FIONA MOZLEY
‘Silence is a Sense is not an easy read, but it is a necessary one’ TLS
‘A powerful new voice, full of brilliant, sharp observational detail’ NIKITA LALWANI
‘I admire this book. It is an intelligent, insightful novel that asks vital questions about how we can begin to express trauma, and in what form’ GUARDIAN
‘Silence is a Sense opens the door on lives we need to hear more about. Lyrical, moving, revealing, it made me understand better the very human need for safety and contact’ TRACY CHEVALIER
‘I was properly enthralled: such intelligence, such a deep pure standard of human decency and connection, such beautiful writing. So intriguing and at the same time revelatory, and absolutely on point about trauma. A little bit Rear Window, a little bit Home Fire, a little bit Shameless. I loved it' LOUISA YOUNG
‘A haunting, lyrical novel about hope, healing and redemption’ RED MAGAZINE
‘The new genre: suburbanoir… Expect more riffs on the dark side of the picket fence to come: out this week is Silence Is a Sense by Layla AlAmmar described as “Rear Window meets [Mohsin Hamid’s] Exit West”, which follows a mute Syrian refugee watching her neighbours from her new apartment’ STYLE MAGAZINE
‘A stunning, evocative read’ J NEWS
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Alammar's evocative second novel (after The Pact We Made) delves into the world of a traumatized, mute, and unnamed journalist who has escaped civil war in Syria for England. There, amid recollections of the violence, she occupies herself with her work as a journalist for an English magazine, and in spying on—and occasionally interacting with—neighbors in her apartment complex. The narrator, whose journalism is published under the pseudonym The Voiceless, muses about religious differences among Muslim people in Syria and her fellow immigrants. However, her editor, Josie, wants her to write more about herself to boost her audience. Though Josie initially understands the narrator's perspective toward her fellow Muslims, she later insists the narrator is "glossing over the very real, unequivocal violence" committed by extremists. Meanwhile, tensions grow at the narrator's mosque, and a "Unity Feast" is invaded by white supremacists who are angry at the presence of Muslims in the country. Though the pacing is slow, the conflicts over immigration and racism are brilliantly distilled, and they dovetail seamlessly with the narrator's lyrical, increasingly defiant narration. Patient readers will find much to ponder.