Fiction. Translated from the French by Georgina Kleege. SITT MARIE ROSE, an SPD bestseller, is the story of a woman abducted by militiamen during the civil war in Lebanon. Already a classic of war literature, it won the France-Pays Arabes award in Paris and has been translated into six languages.

Author Hometown: Sausalito, CA USA



About the author: Etel Adnan is an Arab-American poet and writer who studied at the Sorbonne in France, U.C. Berkeley, and Harvard. She taught Philosophy at Dominican College in San Rafael, California. She is the author of SITT MARIE-ROSE, the celebrated novel on the Civil War in Lebanon (translated into ten languages). She is the author of more than ten books of poetry, essays, and cultural writings. SEASONS is her latest poetry book on which Grimes wrote: "'A childhood of thorns and roses.' Winter, spring, summer and fall. 'For the poor, winter is natural habitat, with pockets empty, depleted, belly empty, in an abandoned garden between the high-rises.' Etel Adnan's meditations, and her poetry, are there in this 'abandoned garden,' speaking to us, and for us, the lament we all must feel, with yet the hope we cannot deny, perched on 'the cliff, and waiting.' We all wait with her."