States of Passion

The world is so strange. The strangest things are the stories you overhear.

When a hapless bureaucrat finds himself stranded in the countryside during a raging storm, he seeks refuge in a grand yet isolated mansion, inhabited by only an elderly gentleman and his unwelcoming servant.

The tale of family secrets he encounters while sheltering there begins with a faded photograph in yellowed newspaper, of a beautiful woman stepping off a train at Aleppo station many years ago. It transports him to Syria's golden age, to the heart of the mysterious, unconventional banat al-ishreh - the infamous women who live, dance and play music together - and into a tangled web of forbidden love.

States of Passion is a beautifully spun, playful novel about what it means to live within a memory of the past - and about the many faces of a city that might have been.