A Word for Love

A Novel

By: Emily Robbins

Narrated by: Julia Whelan

A mesmerizing debut set in Syria on the cusp of the unrest, A Word for Love is the spare and exquisitely told story of a young American woman transformed by language, risk, war, and a startling new understanding of love.

It is said there are 99 Arabic words for love. Bea, an American exchange student, has learned them all: in search of deep feeling, she travels to a Middle Eastern country known to hold "The Astonishing Text", an ancient, original manuscript of a famous Arabic love story that is said to move its best readers to tears. But once in this foreign country, Bea finds that instead of intensely reading Arabic she is entwined in her host family's complicated lives - as they lock the doors and whisper anxiously about impending revolution. And suddenly, instead of the ancient love story she sought, it is her daily witness of a contemporary Romeo and Juliet-like romance - between a housemaid and a policeman of different cultural and political backgrounds - that astonishes her, changes her, and makes her weep. But as the country drifts toward explosive unrest, Bea wonders how many secrets she can keep and how long she can fight for a romance that does not belong to her. Ultimately, in a striking twist, Bea's own story begins to mirror that of "The Astonishing Text" that drew her there in the first place - not in the role of one of the lovers, as she might once have imagined, but as the character who lives to tell the story long after the lovers have gone.

With melodic meditation on culture, language, and familial devotion. Robbins delivers a powerful novel that questions what it means to love from afar, to be an outsider within a love story, and to take someone else's passion and cradle it until it becomes your own.

©2017 Emily Robbins (P)2017 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

“Robbins’ melodic novel is story of war, family, language, but above all, a paean to unabashed, unbridled love. Told in quiet but elegant prose, each thump of this melodic novel’s heart (and what an enormous, rousing heart it is) attests to the timeless and life-giving power of love.” (Khaled Hosseini, New York Times best-selling author of The Kite Runner)

“A stunning first novel on love, loss and language.” (The Chicago Tribune)

“A beautifully crafted story.... Her poetic style plunges the reader into the scene, her tone reminiscent of Camus.... A Word for Love made this reader cry from feeling the transformative, redemptive power of fiction. This profoundly satisfying novel ventures to the very heart of romance and its literary origins in the seventh-century lyric poetry of the Arabian desert." (Washington Independent Review of Books)

beautiful book

This is a beautiful book. The descriptions of Syria are so rich and there are so many interesting insights into the life of a Syrian family. Well worth a read.

Nice writing and imagery but lacking in plot

I find the best books are written beautifully AND have a plot that keeps you interested. I liked that this book explores Arabic literature (a topic I previously knew nothing about) but I find the love story weak.

Where is presumably meant to drive the plot forward, it feels unrealised and intangible.

A nice read but nothing too challenging.