Shortlisted for the Arabic Booker Prize, this novel traces the turbulent life of Aisha, an Egyptian girl raised in a Christian convent. Part allegory, part magical realism, the novel is threaded with aspects of Egyptian antiquity, including accounts of the excavations of ancient Egyptian relics and the tortured jealousies that accompanied them.

Award-winning Egyptian novelist Mohamed Mansi Qandil was born in the Nile delta. He went to medical school and worked as a country doctor before beginning to write fiction. He has published several novels, short-story collections, and children's books, and now lives in Canada.

Barbara Romaine has translated a number of novels by Radwa Ashour, as well as Bahaa' Taher's Aunt Safiyya and the Monastery. In 2011, her translation of Spectres was runner-up for the Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize. She has taught Arabic at several universities for over twenty years.