Bittersweet reading this book considering current events. It is a lovely book. Schami and his sister give you a feeling of the neighborhood and people. It's like you are having a chat over coffee.
A renowned storyteller loses his voice, and his seven friends must each tell him a story to bring it back. This is a colorful, Arabian Nights sort of tale, set in 1959 Syria, where an oppressive government occasionally infringes on the world of the eight old men who spend every evening together and ...
Although this book was written in 1987, it seems no less relevant to today's Syria. The regime allows no alternative opinions and clamps down hard on dissenters,whether real or imagined. A stay in prison is a nightmare for anyone unfortunate enough to rouse suspicion.The fourteen-year-old narrator d...
This was absolutely fascinating. The title does it no favours at all though; this is far more than an exploration of love (although it certainly covers it in all it's permutations, not just the dark), it is an epic social history of Syria over the last hundred-odd years. More specifically it is abou...
I am so very frustrated with this book! The violence is repetitive. The sex is disturbingly portrayed, and it is repetitive too. There is no beauty in any love relationship. Beauty....I thought I would glimpse the beauty of the Syrian landscape. No! I thought I would be drawn into learning about Sy...
The Dark Side of love is an 853 page tome, set in Syria and written in German. Rafik Schami grew up in Syria but moved to Germany in 1971.From the description on the back cover you would think this is a murder mystery, but it isn’t in the general sense. It starts at the end and then works it’s way b...
Had Rafik Schami written the One Thousand and One Nights, it would be thrice as long. Schami is a compulsive story teller. Whenever he mentions a new person in his novels, another full story shots on the side and blossoms under his pen. These side stories are always lively and entertaining, full ...
Ponadprzeciętna. Sam tytuł zwraca uwagę ale treść autentycznie oczarowuje. Pokrzepia. Pozwala na nowo uwierzyć, że chociaż na świecie jest dużo zła, to zawsze znajdzie się też dobro. A wiara naprawdę czyni cuda. Trzeba tylko wierzyć. Piękna historia, robi wrażenie.
This was very disappointing as I was really looking forward to learning more about Syria and its history. Instead I got a couple of Christian families warring against each other and influencing generation after generation. I wanted to slap the main protagonists and tell them to get a life... The re...
This was a beautiful book. Exquisitely told. Thanks Haroon.
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