A Hand Full of Stars. Rafik Schami

      

      Praise for The Calligrapher’s Secret

      “Warmly observed, richly detailed, and often bold and exciting, Schami's fine portrait of life in Damascus, Syria, in the middle of the 20th century is filled with a compelling set of characters. Noura is a Muslim girl who looks like Audrey Hepburn. Rami Arabi, her father, a noted sheikh, is frustrated that those who attend his mosque ‘treat God like a waiter in a restaurant.’ Salman is a Christian boy, hated by his drunkard father and devoted to his dog, and to Noura. Nasri Abbani is a wealthy man from an important family, but also a hopeless playboy, his business kept afloat only because of his clever clerk, Tawfiq. When Nasri sets foot in the studio of Hamid Farsi, the leading calligrapher in all of Syria, tragic and wondrous events are set in motion that will affect all in the most emphatic ways. Schami, born in Damascus, is one of Germany's most respected writers, bridging Arab and Western culture with his exquisite storytelling. A novel to be savored….”

      —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

      “A literary masterpiece… a sensual homage to Damascus… you only wish it were a never-ending story.”

      —Sabine Tesche, Hamburger Abendblatt

      “Schami’s new novel shows Syrian society in all its colorful facets and touches all the reader’s senses.”

      —BR Online

      “What a book! And what a theme that unites it: rebellion against the impossibility of love, against religious hatred, and against intolerance.”

      —Brigitte

      “The Calligrapher’s Secret is an exquisitely colorful universe of stories and a mirror of Syrian society in the 1950s.”

      —Denis Scheck, ARD Das Erste Television

      Praise for The Dark Side of Love

      “Like the mythopoeic India of Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, the main protagonist of Schami’s encyclopedic, jigsaw puzzle of a novel is a country: Syria… Schami gives voice to the entire chorus of Damascus life… Schami, a major international talent, has a broad range, from the scatological to the sexually comic to the painful, and with this extraordinary book deserves to establish an American audience.”

      —Publishers Weekly (starred review and a PW Pick of the Week)

      “...may turn out to be the first Great Syrian Novel. The Dark Side of Love illumines almost every side of love, as well as fear, longing, cruelty and lust. Darkness and light alternate like the basalt and marble stripes on Damascene walls, and the novel's structure is just as strong...as expansive, as comprehensive, as War and Peace.”

      —The Guardian

      “Extraordinary, exquisite, and entirely its own creature...Readers will not be disappointed by his expert pen...Romance, mystery, family saga, political exploration The Dark Side of Love takes on many shapes. This is an enthralling page-turner that will invite readers to find out how the pieces fit together; it also offers prose as succulent as sweetmeats that begs to be savored.”

      —Foreword Magazine

      “Romeo and Juliet meets Arturo Pérez-Reverte and John le Carré in the dusty streets of Damascus… A rewarding and beautifully written, if blood-soaked, tale.”

      —Kirkus Reviews

      “An important contribution to Syrian literature… readers will enjoy rambling through the streets of Damascus, a city that Schami clearly loves and evokes effectively and affectionately.”

      —Library Journal

      Praise for Damascus Nights

      “Timely and timeless at once.”

      —Malcolm Bradbury, The New York Times Book Review

      “A picturesque collection of tales… wonderfully contemporary.”

      —Richard Eder, Los Angeles Times Book Review

      “A highly atmospheric, pungent narrative.”

      —Publishers Weekly

      “A master spinner of innocently beguiling yarns, slyly oblivious to the Western cartographies of narrative art and faithful only to the oral itineraries of the classical Arab storytellers, Rafik Schami plays with the genre of the Western novel, and he explodes it from within.”

      —Anton Shammas

      “This wonderful book is enlightening and endearing, witty and wise… Highly recommended…”

      —Library Journal

      A Hand

      Full of Stars

      by Rafik Schami

      translated from the German by Rika Lesser

      An imprint of Interlink Group, Inc.

      Northampton, Massachusetts

      This edition first published in 2012 by

      INTERLINK BOOKS

      An imprint of Interlink Publishing Group, Inc

      46 Crosby Street, Northampton, Massachusetts 01060

       www.interlinkbooks.com

      Copyright © by Beltz Verlag, Weinheim und Basel 1987, 2012

      English translation copyright © by Rika Lesser 1990, 2012M

      Cover illustration copyright © Root Leeb, 2012

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form (including photocopying or storing it in any medium by electronic/digital means and whether or not transiently) without the written permission of the copyright owner. Applications for the copyright owner’s written permission to reproduce any part of this publication should be addressed to the publisher.

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Schami, Rafik, Date

      A hand full of stars.

      Translation of: Eine Hand voller Sterne

      Summary: A teenager who wants to be a journalist in a suppressed society describes to his diary his daily life in his hometown of Damascus, Syria.

      [1. Syria—Fiction. 2. Diaries] I. Title.

      PZ7.S3337Han 1990 [Fic] 89-25991

      ISBN 978-1-56656-840-1

      First published in the United States in 1990 by

      Dutton Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Books USA Inc.

      Originally published in Germany in 1987 by Belz Verlag

       under the title Eine Hand voller Sterne

      Printed and bound in the United States of America

      To order or request our complete catalog, please call us at 1-800-238-LINK,

       or e-mail: [email protected]

      to Marie and Therese,

      my sisters

      R. S.