An Unnecessary Woman is a 2014 novel by the Lebanese American writer Rabih Alameddine. The book was nominated for the National Book Award for Fiction. [1] The novel focuses on the experiences of an isolated 72-year-old widow, Aaliya Saleh, who is a shut-in in Beirut. She reads widely and deeply, translates favorite novels, and has a rich inner life to explore daily events. [1]
Saleh secretly translates Western literature, such as Anna Karenina and Austerlitz, into Arabic. She repeated refers to such contemporary authors as Italo Calvino. [2] Within this context the novel focuses on the role of the reader in engaging and examining literature. [2] As The Independent describes, "Aaliyah keeps company with her writers – living and dead" instead of people. [3] The Washington Post said, "Literature is Aaliya's religion and much of the wonderful humor in 'An Unnecessary Woman' comes from her pithy contempt for those who fail to live up to its sacred precepts." [2]
The novel's reception was generally very positive. [4] The NPR critic noted that the plot is relatively limited, but praised the writing, stating that, "I can't remember the last time I was so gripped simply by a novel's voice." [1]
The Guardian 's reviewer, American novelist Claire Messud, similarly highlighted how the novel has a very "elastic" voice, as the author narrates the novel with both interior dialogue and other narrative strategies. [5] The Guardian concludes positively, writing that, "precisely in its strangeness, a genuine literary pleasure: a complicated one." [5]
Open Letters Monthly reviewer Steve Donoghue described the novel as "infinitely strange" but "smarter and more assured" than Alameddine's last novel The Hakawati . [6] The Washington Post reviewer said the novel was as "epic as its predecessor". [2] The Independent gave the novel a very positive review concluding, "read it once, read it twice, read other books for a decade or so, and then pick it up and read it anew. This one’s a keeper." [3]
James Douglas Graham Wood is an English[a] literary critic, essayist and novelist.
Rabih Alameddine is an American painter and writer. His 2021 novel The Wrong End of the Telescope won the 2022 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.
Lan Samantha Chang is an American novelist and short story writer. She is the author of The Family Chao (2022) and short story collection Hunger. For her fiction, which explores Chinese American experiences, she is a recipient of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, the Berlin Prize, the PEN/Open Book Award and the Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award.
Robert Olen Butler is an American fiction writer. His short-story collection A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1993.
Magda Szabó was a Hungarian novelist. Doctor of philology, she also wrote dramas, essays, studies, memoirs, poetry and children's literature. She was a founding member of the Digital Literary Academy, an online digital repository of Hungarian literature. She is the most translated Hungarian author, with publications in 42 countries and over 30 languages.
Elizabeth Strout is an American novelist and author. She is widely known for her works in literary fiction and her descriptive characterization. She was born and raised in Portland, Maine, and her experiences in her youth served as inspiration for her novels–the fictional "Shirley Falls, Maine" is the setting of four of her nine novels.
Claire Messud is an American/Canadian/French novelist and literature and creative writing professor. She is best known as the author of the novel The Emperor's Children (2006).
Adrian Igonibo Barrett is a Nigerian writer of short stories and novels. In 2014, he was named on the Africa39 list of writers aged under 40 with potential and talent to define future trends in African literature. Following his two collections of short stories – From Caves of Rotten Teeth (2005) and Love Is Power, or Something Like That (2013) – his first novel, Blackass, was published in 2015, described by the Chicago Review of Books as "Kafka with a wink".
Koolaids: The Art of War is a novel by Rabih Alameddine, an author and painter who lives in both San Francisco and Beirut. He grew up in the Middle East, in Kuwait and Lebanon. Published in 1998, Koolaids is Alameddine's first novel. The majority of the story takes place in San Francisco and Beirut, the sites of two very different "wars". San Francisco from the mid-1980s into the 1990s is the main site of the AIDS epidemic, especially among the gay community, while Beirut is the site of a brutal civil war.
Aminatta Forna is a British writer of Scottish and Sierra Leonean ancestry. Her first book was a memoir, The Devil That Danced on the Water: A Daughter's Quest (2002). Since then she has written four novels: Ancestor Stones (2006), The Memory of Love (2010), The Hired Man (2013) and Happiness (2018). In 2021 she published a collection of essays, The Window Seat: Notes from a Life in Motion. (2021), which was a new genre for her.
Claire Vaye Watkins is an American author and academic.
The Dinner is a novel by the Dutch author Herman Koch. The book was first published by Ambo Anthos in 2009. It was translated into English by Sam Garrett, published in Great Britain in 2012, and the United States in 2013. The book became an international bestseller with many translations and has been adapted into four films.
My Name is Lucy Barton is a 2016 New York Times bestselling novel and the fifth novel by the American writer Elizabeth Strout. The book was first published in the United States on January 12, 2016, through Random House. The book details the complicated relationship between the titular Lucy Barton and her mother.
Tessa Jane Hadley is a British author, who writes novels, short stories and nonfiction. Her writing is realistic and often focuses on family relationships. Her novels have twice reached the longlists of the Orange Prize and the Wales Book of the Year, and in 2016, she won the Hawthornden Prize, as well as one of the Windham-Campbell Literature Prizes for fiction. The Windham-Campbell judges describe her as "one of English's finest contemporary writers" and state that her writing "brilliantly illuminates ordinary lives with extraordinary prose that is superbly controlled, psychologically acute, and subtly powerful." As of 2016, she is professor of creative writing at Bath Spa University.
The Hakawati is a novel written by Rabih Alameddine and published by Alfred A. Knopf in 2008. The novel explores Lebanese families and cultures, and was well received by critics.
I, the Divine: A Novel in First Chapters is a 2001 novel by American writer Rabih Alameddine.
The Little Red Chairs is a 2015 novel by Irish author Edna O'Brien, who was 85 at the time of publication. The novel is O'Brien's 23rd fictional publication.
The Woman Upstairs is a novel by Claire Messud that was published in 2013 by Alfred A. Knopf. Set in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the novel is told from the point of view of Nora Elridge, an elementary school teacher reflecting back on her life in 2004 when she became enchanted with the Shahids, a family of intellectuals she met while teaching their young son Reza.
This Strange Eventful History is a historical fiction novel by Claire Messud. It was published on May 14, 2024 to critical acclaim. The novel was longlisted for the 2024 Booker Prize and the 2024 Giller Prize.
The Angel of History is a 2016 novel by Rabih Alameddine. It was the winner of the 2017 Arab American Book Award for Best Adult Fiction and has been widely reviewed.
 | This article about a 2000s novel is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. See guidelines for writing about novels. Further suggestions might be found on the article's talk page. |