Fencing with the King

A Novel

14 April 2023

Description

A mesmerising novel of family myths and inheritances by the award-winning author of Crescent

The King of Jordan is turning 60! How better to celebrate the occasion than with his favourite pastime—fencing—and with his favourite sparring partner, Gabriel Hamdan, who must be enticed back from America, where he lives with his wife and his daughter, Amani.

Amani, a divorced poet, jumps at the chance to accompany her father to his homeland for the King’s birthday. Her father’s past is a mystery to her—even more so since she found a poem on blue airmail paper slipped into one of his old Arabic books, written by his mother, a Palestinian refugee who arrived in Jordan during World War I. Her words hint at a long-kept family secret, carefully guarded by Uncle Hafez, an advisor to the King, who has quite personal reasons for inviting his brother to the birthday party. In a sibling rivalry that carries ancient echoes, the Hamdan brothers must face a reckoning, with themselves and with each other—one that almost costs Amani her life.

With sharp insight into modern politics and family dynamics, taboos around mental illness and our inescapable relationship to the past, Fencing with the King asks how we contend with inheritance: familial and cultural, hidden and openly contested. Shot through with warmth and vitality, intelligence and spirit, it is absorbing and satisfying on every level, a wise and rare literary treat.

Reviews

"A delicate arabesque of intertwining family relationships, Fencing with the King probes the cost of exile and voluntary expatriation, asking: When is inheritance a blessing, and when is it merely a burden?" — Geraldine Brooks, author of The Secret Chord

"[An] enthralling novel of Jordan’s history, glory and authoritarian impulses, stratified class structure, and fraught family dynamics. (And fencing with King Hussein)" — Elizabeth Taylor, co-author of American Pharaoh

"Diana Abu-Jaber outdoes herself with this brilliantly paced and utterly absorbing novel. From start to finish, her dynamic prose and seemingly effortless storytelling create an original narrative of love, intrigue, and family/global dynamics. Fencing with the King is a flavorful page-turner that will both nourish and satiate. You are in for a treat." — Laila Halaby, author of Once in a Promised Land

"I read Diana Abu-Jaber’s Fencing with the King in one sitting— I couldn’t stop. Ambitious, vivid, compelling, and full of life, this rich family story tells so many truths and uses family myths and fables to explore complex history, intergeneration" — Etaf Rum, author of A Woman is No Man

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Paperback

9781324050315

140 x 211 mm • 320 pages

£13.99

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Ebook

9780393867725

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£13.99

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