Granada: The Complete Trilogy

A ＂rich and evocative＂ (Booklist) multigenerational epic set at the collapse of Muslim rule in Medieval Spain, available now for the first time in a new, complete translation

It is 1492, and the keys to Granada, the last Muslim state in the Spanish Peninsula, have been handed over to the Christian king and queen: the final vestiges of this Arab kingdom in Europe are swept away.

As the triumphant new masters of Granada burn books, Abu Jaafar, a bookseller by trade, quietly moves his rich library out of town. The tangled lives of Abu Jaafar’s family, his descendants, and his community bear witness to the vanquishing of Muslim life: confiscations, forced conversions, and expulsions.

Radwa Ashour’s sweeping trilogy, set over one hundred years against the backdrop of the great historical events of sixteenth-century Europe, tells the story of those who remained in Andalusia, of the individuals who struggled to maintain faith and hope in a possible future. It narrates a community’s effort to comprehend what has happened to them, of their valiant but ultimately unsuccessful efforts to resist the destruction of their identity.

Named a top literary work of the twentieth century by the Arab Writers’ Union, Granada is now available in English in its entirety for the first time. All three novels-Granada, Maryama and The Departure--are brilliantly retranslated in this outstanding new paperback edition.

Radwa Ashour (1946-2014) is a highly acclaimed Egyptian writer and scholar. She is the author of more than fifteen works of fiction, memoir, and criticism, including Granada (AUC Press, 2008) and The Woman from Tantoura (AUC Press, 2014), and was a recipient of the Constantine Cavafy Prize for Literature and the prestigious Owais Prize for Fiction.

Kay Heikkinen is a translator and academic who holds a PhD from Harvard University. She was previously Ibn Rushd Lecturer of Arabic at the University of Chicago. Among other books, she has translated Naguib Mahfouz’s In the Time of Love, Radwa Ashour’s The Woman From Tantoura, and Huzama Habayeb’s Velvet, for which she was awarded the 2020 Saif-Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation. She lives in Seattle, Washington.