Fencing with the King

Available
4.9/5.0
21,000+ Reviews
Bookshop.org has the highest-rated customer service of any bookstore in the world
Product Details
Price
$17.95  $16.69
Publisher
W. W. Norton & Company
Publish Date
Pages
320
Dimensions
5.56 X 8.24 X 0.77 inches | 0.55 pounds
Language
English
Type
Paperback
EAN/UPC
9781324050315

Earn by promoting books

Earn money by sharing your favorite books through our Affiliate program.

Become an affiliate
About the Author

Diana Abu-Jaber is the author of Origin, Crescent, The Language of Baklava, and Arabian Jazz. She has won the PEN Center USA Award for Literary Fiction, the Oregon Book Award, and other prizes. Her writing appears in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Slate, Ms., Gourmet, Salon, and Vogue, and she is frequently featured on National Public Radio. She lives in Coral Gables, Florida, and Portland, Oregon.

Reviews
Diana Abu-Jaber outdoes herself with this brilliantly paced and utterly absorbing novel. From start to finish, her dynamic prose and seemingly effortless storytelling create an original narrative of love, intrigue, and family/global dynamics. Fencing with the King is a flavorful page-turner that will both nourish and satiate. You are in for a treat.--Laila Halaby, author of Once in a Promised Land
A rare pleasure. Abu-Jaber's rich characters live and breathe around you, and her nuance and wit bring the largest themes to irresistible, present life.--Claire Messud, author of The Burning Girl
I read Diana Abu-Jaber's Fencing with the King in one sitting-- I couldn't stop. Ambitious, vivid, compelling, and full of life, this rich family story tells so many truths and uses family myths and fables to explore complex history, intergenerational trauma, and the wounds of exile and displacement. An absolute must read.--Etaf Rum, author of A Woman is No Man
A delicate arabesque of intertwining family relationships, Fencing with the King probes the cost of exile and voluntary expatriation, asking: When is inheritance a blessing, and when is it merely a burden?--Geraldine Brooks, author of The Secret Chord
The best novel I've read all year: shimmering prose, compelling emotion, and utterly impossible to put down. Rarely has the terroir of ancestry been so masterfully evoked. Abu-Jaber's best yet.--Nicole Mones, author of The Last Chinese Chef
Abu-Jaber spins a mesmerizing tale of displacement...this is a haunting look at the pull the past exerts on us.--Poornima Apte "Booklist"
Abu-Jaber ably captures the tenuous role of Jordan in the mid-1990s Middle East peace process while unearthing a family's buried secrets. It adds up to an engrossing family drama.-- "Publishers Weekly"