The Bridges of Constantine

The Bridges of Constantine is a poignant fresco of Algeria over the last fifty years, a searing love story and a hymn to a lost city. Khaled, a former revolutionary in the Algerian war of liberation has been in self-exile in Paris for two decades, disgusted by the corruption that now riddles the country he once fought for. Now a celebrated painter, he is surprised at the opening of one of his exhibitions to see Hayat, the daughter of his old revolutionary commander. A child when he last saw her, she has now become a seductive young novelist.

As Khaled is consumed with passion for her, Hayat comes to embody the homeland and the city he still grieves for--the city he paints over and over again in his canvases. Through Hayat, Khaled's past is breathed back into life and he, at last, begins to confront his feelings about Algeria. But for Hayat, as elusive as she is tender, the question of what one should yearn for is not so simple, and the choices she makes will have devastating consequences for them both.

The first novel in an award-winning, bestselling trilogy that spans Algeria's tumultuous recent history,The Bridges of Constantine is a lyrical and heartrending love story about loss and remembrance, exile and belonging.

Algerian novelist and poet, Ahlem Mosteghanemi is the bestselling female author in the Arab world. The Arabic original of this title (Dhakirat al-Jasad) was awarded the 1998 Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature (founded in honor of the Nobel laureate). It is the first in a trilogy of bestselling novels.

Raphael Cohen studied Arabic at Oxford University and the University of Chicago, and now lives and works in Cairo.