Damascus

Taste of a City
By Rafik Schami and Marie Fadel

Quantity:

'Urban history has never been so mouth-watering' - The Guardian

Rafik Schami was forced into exile in Europe in 1971, and now lives in Germany, where he has become a best-selling and celebrated novelist; his most recent novel, The Dark Side of Love, which is set in Damascus, was shortlisted for the 2010 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. Damascus: Taste of a City is a paen to the city he has not seen for forty years, the city that he pines for. Able only to conjure distant memories of his home town, Schami’s sister, Marie Fadel, wandered the city on his behalf, relishing the curiosities, the sounds, the personalities, the tastes and the smells and relaying them to Schami over the telephone. He wrote her observations down, revelling in the diverse marks left on Damascene cuisine by its multifarious history.

 

Rafik Schami is the acclaimed author of The Dark Side of Love. His novel The Calligrapher's Secret will be published by Arabia Books in 2011. Translated by Debra S. Marmor, Herbert A. Danner & Peter Lewis


A great review in The Guardian, August 14th 2010:

'It is said that 'when a man has lived seven years in Damascus, Damascus lives in him'. Novelist Rafik Schami grew up in the city and lived there for 25 years, but is now exiled in Germany, a fact that gives this heartfelt guide to Damascus and its food an added poignancy. Indeed, he couldn't see how the book would be written, until his sister, Marie Fadel (who still lives in the city), suggested that she would be his eyes and ears. For a year she wandered the city describing what she saw on the telephone while he listened, 'almost torn apart by longing'. The result of this unusual collaboration is a wonderfully evocative account of the old city, the people who live there and the recipes they love, such as kibbeh (a 'noble dish' of burghul wheat and beef) and wara einab (vine leaves stuffed with meat) - 'the pinnacle of elegance in oriental cuisine'. Damascus is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, and as Schami says, 'Damascene cooking is a living witness and delicious memorial' to the rich mix of cultures and peoples who have lived there for millenia. Urban history has never been so mouth-watering.' (P.D. Smith, The Guardian)