Our Names

In 1955, as the old empires crumble and a new world struggles to be born, Marie Nahhas leaves Beirut to accompany Lebanon’s delegation to the historic Asia–Africa Conference in Bandung, Indonesia. There, she meets Shirin, an Indian photographer determined to document history on her own terms, forming a deep friendship that will endure long after the conference is over.

Through years of correspondence, Marie and Shirin remain bound to each other, sharing their private lives in letters while, around them, the hopes of a generation collide with political reality.

Then Marie’s letters stop and, concerned, Shirin decides to travel to Beirut to find her. Following the traces of the Marie she thought she knew, she pieces together a life shaped by grief, resistance and impossible choices – confronting the distance that can remain between even the closest of friends.

Intimate and expansive, Our Names is a novel about friendship, memory and freedom – about the lives we choose, the histories we inherit and the futures we imagine.