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The Dove's Necklace
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When the body of a young woman is discovered in the Lane of Many Heads, an alley in modern-day Mecca, no one will claim it, as they are all ashamed of her nakedness. As Detective Nasser pursues his investigation of the case, seemingly all of Mecca chimes in—including the Lane of Many Heads itself—in this brilliant, funny, profane, and enigmatic fever dream of a novel by Ra
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ebook, 480 pages
Published
May 3rd 2016
by The Overlook Press
(first published 2010)
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Community Reviews
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The Dove's Necklace by Raja Alem is a captivating novel that will lure all readers to its great depth. A mystery that intrigues the soul to flip its pages in a haste to find out its secrets. What lies deep in this novel is a history that will blow readers away with every word. Raja Alem is indeed a talented writer with a way of bringing, to life, the murder, customs, and investigation that is portrayed in this stunning tale. The point of view is enjoyable. Told from an alley way's point of view.
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The opening for The Dove's Necklace by Raja Alem seems to declare that this is a mystery though scarcely a conventional one. I can't say that I've ever read a mystery which begins from the perspective of the street where the body was found. There is a police detective investigating the death. Yet if you were expecting to find out whodunit, you will be sorely disappointed. It can be challenging to even get an identification of a female murder victim in a country where women are completely veiled
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I'm really not sure what to think about this book. On the one hand, it's highly original; totally unlike anything I've ever read. On the other, it is very confusing. It is beautiful and ugly at the same time.
It is, underneath all the overlaid intersecting story-lines, a book about the conflict between modern global capitalism and traditional tribalism, class structure and religious fundamentalism. It is particularly concerned with the rights of women; how in traditional Wahabbist society, women ...more
It is, underneath all the overlaid intersecting story-lines, a book about the conflict between modern global capitalism and traditional tribalism, class structure and religious fundamentalism. It is particularly concerned with the rights of women; how in traditional Wahabbist society, women ...more
Alem's novels demand patience and are to be savoured piecemeal if we are to do the writer's genius credit. I found it rich, dense, fascinating, beautiful, tiring, and at times frustrating. However, I was left with memorable, even if unbelievably philosophical, characters who managed to convey Alem's unforgettable and intricate mythologising of Macca. Hers is a very different history, one that invites tasting (تذوق) with a palate desensitised to tyranny of fact. Alem knows Macca from its mystical
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Trigger warnings: murder, misogyny, childbirth, death of a child, violence.
Here's the thing: I've been wanting to read this book for a year now, after stumbling across it in Foyles last year. But I didn't have space in my suitcase for it at the time, so I put it on the backburner. Until I saw a copy sitting on the new books shelf at my local library.
The premise sounded SO interesting - a woman's body is found in a laneway in Mecca, and she can't be identified. It's told from the perspective of ...more
Here's the thing: I've been wanting to read this book for a year now, after stumbling across it in Foyles last year. But I didn't have space in my suitcase for it at the time, so I put it on the backburner. Until I saw a copy sitting on the new books shelf at my local library.
The premise sounded SO interesting - a woman's body is found in a laneway in Mecca, and she can't be identified. It's told from the perspective of ...more
A gripping noir, about a discovered body and subsequent investigation in Mecca. Alem is the first woman to win the international prize for Arabic fiction.
Tune in to our weekly podcast dedicated to all things new books, All The Books: http://bookriot.com/category/all-the-... ...more
Tune in to our weekly podcast dedicated to all things new books, All The Books: http://bookriot.com/category/all-the-... ...more
The Dove's Necklace absolutely blew me away. I'll work on a more comprehensive review this coming week, but this is easily my favorite read of the year.
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The Dove's Necklace by Raja'a Alem is one of those novels you don't know how to talk about for the lack of knowledge about the world it describes. So I'll just stick to what I could grasp.
The narrator in this novel is a street in Mecca, The Lane of Many Heads. The street is a woman and she cares about the people who live on it, despite the fact that they might think otherwise. A body of a naked woman was found on the street, and a detective is summoned to investigate. He's keen to find the trut ...more
The narrator in this novel is a street in Mecca, The Lane of Many Heads. The street is a woman and she cares about the people who live on it, despite the fact that they might think otherwise. A body of a naked woman was found on the street, and a detective is summoned to investigate. He's keen to find the trut ...more
I was very excited to read the book as it was a joint winner of the Int Prize of Arabic Fiction (IPAF) 2011. The first half of the book present us with many characters and their life stories which I had to keep a list of (to use later during the book club meeting discussion). The details are nice but the plot is weak and it gets weaker during as the novel draws to an end. The author is probably trying to mimic the Dan Brown style in creating a mystery(s) that is/are not convincing. I really wond
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I received an ARC of this novel to review for Chicago Review of Books. Here's the link: http://chireviewofbooks.com/2016/03/2...
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This is my most challenging book this year. First woman to win the Arabic Prize in Fiction. Prize-winning German translation. 474 pages of emotionally dense and labyrinthine writing. Started in Sept, had to turn it back in to the library because I exhausted renewals, and picked it up again 4 weeks and 2 days ago. 10 pages. So much magical realism, blocks of italic text, so much surrealism (my friends lovingly point out my literalness from time to time). 50 pages. Read a few reviews. 50 more. Tho
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Highly imaginative, and brilliantly written. It has a dazzling range of references, and is quite interesting on questions of identity, and on femininity and sexuality too, particularly in the Azza-Aisha split (one of them has been murdered; of both of them, or neither?). But to be honest, I didn't know what the bloody hell was going on half the time. More than half the time. And while I think that was the point to some extent, it made the book feel too long. I feel I let this book down as a read
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There is an amazing, complex, beautifully written, fiercely intelligent and expressively told book here. I just did not get it. I think this is my fault not the book’s and not the author’s. I just did not get it or understand it. I think the author is hugely talented and a brilliant writer. I just did not get it. I finished the book but it made no sense to me. But, and I would never say this about any other book as I firmly believe that it is the duty of a book to communicate with it’s reader, I
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Wonderful, mysterious, weird, gruesome at times, and generally quite challenging to read. And don’t expect a traditional murder mystery, because that it is not. I learned so much about another culture though, about a different way of life. Three rather than four stars is due to me completely and literally losing the plot during Part Two of the book.
So far, I haven't been able to get past the first 20 pages. This book won an international prize for Arabic Fiction so I want to be able to read it but so far, there's a density that I just can't beat.
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A convoluted web that challenges the old and the new ways of seeing Mecca. It is not an easy read, but it is a worthwhile read.
Enjoyed the start, then put it down and couldn't be bothered picking it up again. Maybe I'll come back to it someday.
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4 stars for the start and the ending, 2 stars for some of the wandering pages in the middle.
Beautifully written. Poetic.
A dead girl in Mecca, plenty of colourful characters, a charged atmosphere and quite a bit of surrealism. Not an easy read.
Nice
Difficult to follow.
Feb 03, 2021
Trigger Warning Database
added it
Trigger & Content Warnings:
Misogyny
Childbirth
Death of a child
Murder
Misogyny
Childbirth
Death of a child
Murder
I read the book in its original language (Arabic) and loved it so much! I would guess a lot got missing in the translation into English. If you can read it in Arabic, do it!!
Not a book I'd recommend to many people- interesting but flawed.
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P-193
This was a beautifully told story about love.
Oct 04, 2016
Ann
added it
Got lost in the metaphors. Only read 1/2 the book
Masterful write! It's contemporary Arabic Literature with wit, candour and somewhat dangerous.
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A sensual and gripping novel where women are ghosts, in life, in death, even in dreams
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Armchair Trav...: fiction *The Dove's Necklace* discussion | 1 | 10 | Aug 17, 2016 08:38PM | |
| صالون الجمعة: طوق الحمام | 4-2013 | 32 | 244 | May 05, 2013 06:01AM |
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Raja'a Alem is a Saudi Arabian novelist from Mecca/Hejaz. She received her BA in English Literature and works as a tutor for the Center for Training Kindergarten Teachers in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
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