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For far too long, Afghan women have been faceless and voiceless. Until w. With The Patience Stone, Atiq Rahimi gives face and voice to one unforgettable woman and, one could argue, offers her as a proxy for the grievances of millions it is a rich read, part allegory, part a tale of retribution, part an exploration of hor, love, sex, marriage, war. It is without doubt an important and courageous book. from the introduction by Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns In Persian folklore, Syngue Sabour is the name of a magical black stone, a patience stone, which absorbs the plight of those who confide in it. It is believed that the day it explodes, after having received too much hardship and pain, will be the day of the Apocalypse. But here, the Syngue Sabour is t a stone but rather a man lying brain-dead with a bullet lodged in his neck. His wife is with him, sitting by his side. But she resents him for having sacrificed her to the war, for never being able to resist the call to arms, for wanting to be a hero, and in the end, after all was said and done, for being incapacitated in a small skirmish. Yet she cares, and she speaks to him. She even talks to him more and more, opening up her deepest desires, pains, and secrets. While in the streets rival factions clash and soldiers are looting and killing around her, she speaks of her life, never kwing if her husband really hears. And it is an extraordinary confession, without restraint, about sex and love and her anger against a man who never understood her, who mistreated her, who never showed her any respect or kindness. Her admission releases the weight of oppression of marital, social, and religious rms, and she leads her story up to the great secret that is unthinkable in a country such as Afghanistan. Winner of the Prix Goncourt, The Patience Stone captures with great courage and spare, poetic, prose the reality of everyday life for an intelligent woman under the oppressive weight of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.

Product Identifiers

PublisherOther Press, LLC

ISBN-101590513444

ISBN-139781590513446

eBay Product ID (ePID)189926111

Product Key Features

Original LanguageFrench

Book TitlePatience Stone

Number of Pages160 Pages

LanguageEnglish

Publication Year2010

TopicPsychological, Cultural Heritage, Literary

GenreFiction

AuthorAtiq Rahimi

FormatHardcover

Dimensions

Item Height0.8 in

Item Weight8 Oz

Item Length7.8 in

Item Width5.2 in

Height197mm

Width174mm

Weight177g

Additional Product Features

Intended AudienceTrade

Spine19mm

Country of PublicationUnited States

Author BiographyAtiq Rahimi was born in Afghanistan in 1962, but fled to France in 1984. There he has become renowned as a maker of documentary and feature films, and as a writer. The film of his novel Earth and Ashes was in the Official Selection at Cannes in 2004 and won a number of prizes. He is currently adapting another of his novels, A Thousand Rooms of Dreams and Fear, for the screen. Since 2001 Rahimi has returned to Afghanistan to set up a Writers House in Kabul and to offer support and training to young Afghan writers and filmmakers. He lives in Paris. Polly McLean is a freelance translator based in Oxford, England. Previous translations include titles by Catherine Deneuve and Sylvia Kristel (star of the Emmanuelle films) as well as the award-winning Secret by Philippe Grimbert