Ports of Call

A love story set against the backdrop of war that deals with conflicts between father and son, past and present, as well as the political tensions of twentieth century Europe.

A simple and touching love story...limpid and delicate in the telling

Maalouf's novels recreate the thrill of childhood reading, that primitive mixture of learning about something unknown or unimagined and forgetting utterly about oneself. His is a voice which Europe cannot afford to ignore

Amin Maalouf's fiction includes Leo the African, Rock of Tanios, which won the 1993 Prix Goncourt, Samarkand and Ports of Call. He is also the author of an acclaimed scholarly work, The Crusades Through Arab Eyes, as well as the much admired essay, 'On Identity'. 
 
Alberto Mangguel was born in Buenos Aires and has lived in Canada and in Europe. He has an international reputation as an anthropologist, essayist, novelist and editor and has translated the works of Julio Cortazar and Marguerite Yourcenar. He is the author of A History of reading and Reading Pictures.

A graceful story of love across an insuperable gulf and a powerful allegory for the conflict that has beset the Middle East for the last half century. 
 
To call your son Ossyane is like calling him Rebellion. For Ossyane’s father it is a gesture of protest by an excited Ottoman prince, for Ossyane himself it is a burdensome responsibility. At eighteen he leaves Beirut to study in Montpellier, far away from his father’s revolutionary aspirations for him. But it is 1938, and when war breaks out in Europe, Ossyane is drawn into the Resistance. His return to Beirut is a rebel hero’s welcome after all, and a joyful reunion with Clara, whom he first met in France. But if one war has brought the Jewish-Muslim couple together, another, much closer to home, is destined to separate Ossyane from the people and the world that he loves.

On Identity

A profoundly intelligent book about identity: how the individual defines it and how different cultures perceive and construct it.

His observation of human nature in all its facets is wonderfully accurate

His is a voice which Europe cannot afford to ignore

This book sets out quite simply what is required of civilisation in the third millennium

Amin Maalouf's fiction includes Leo the African, Rock of Tanios, which won the 1993 Prix Goncourt, Samarkand and Ports of Call. He is also the author of an acclaimed scholarly work, The Crusades Through Arab Eyes, as well as the much admired essay, 'On Identity'. 
 
Barbara Bray has twice won the Scott-Moncrieff Prize, as well as the French-American Foundation Prize, for her translations. These include The Lover by Marguerite Duras, The Concert by Ismail Kadare, and George Sand's letters in Flaubert-Sand: The Correspondence.

The notion of identity - personal, religious, ethnic or national - is one that has given rise to heated passions and crimes throughout the history of mankind. What it is that makes each one of us unique and dissimilar to any other individual has been one of the fundamental questions of philosophy from Socrates to Freud. 
 
In this important series of reflections, the author, a Lebanese who now lives in France, where he is a well-known writer and commentator, considers how we define ourselves and how identity is understood in the world's different cultures.

Amin Maalouf

Barbara Bray

His is a voice which Europe cannot afford to ignore.

His observation of human nature in all its facets is wonderfully accurate.

One of Maalouf's most subtle books, and without doubt one of his most accomplished.

Sparkling and erudite, this is a wonderful novel.

A splendid book that should be read in the way one looks at a highly coloured fresco, allowing oneself to be transported by the breeze that wafts Balthasar on the most unexpected journeys.

Indeed, if you want to understand what's going on in the world at this moment, you could certainly do worse than to read Maalouf on the past

[A] wonderful tale-its bewildered and worldly hero, facing a chaotic universe, makes this meticulously researched historical novel uniquely relevant

There are ninety-nine names for God in the Koran, is it possible that there is a secret one-hundredth name? 
 
In this tale of magic and mystery, of love and danger, Balthasar's ultimate quest is to find the secret that could save the world. 
 
Before the dawn of the apocalyptic 'Year of the Beast' in 1666, Balthasar Embriaco, a Genoese Levantine merchant, sets out on an adventure that will take him across the breadth of the civilised world, from Constantinople, through the Mediterranean, to London shortly before the Great Fire. 
 
Balthasar's urgent quest is to track down a copy of one of the rarest and most coveted books ever printed, a volume called 'The Hundredth Name', its contents are thought to be of vital importance to the future of the world. There are ninety-nine names for God in the Koran, and merely to know this most secret hundredth name will, Balthasar believes, ensure his salvation.

Amin Maalouf

Praise for Balthasar's Odyssey

His is a voice which Europe cannot afford to ignore.

His observation of human nature in all its facets is wonderfully accurate.

One of Maalouf's most subtle books, and without doubt one of his most accomplished.

His is a voice which Europe cannot afford to ignore.

His observation of human nature in all its facets is wonderfully accurate.

One of Maalouf's most subtle books, and without doubt one of his most accomplished.

His is a voice which Europe cannot afford to ignore.

His observation of human nature in all its facets is wonderfully accurate.

One of Maalouf's most subtle books, and without doubt one of his most accomplished.

Books by Amin Maalouf

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