Someone recommended this novel to me years ago but somehow every time I picked it up, it didn`t seem to be what I was wanting to read at that moment, so it has taken me until now to discover a very fine writer and a most moving and intelligent novel about what it is like to live between two cultures.

It is IN THE EYE OF THE SUN by Ahdaf Souief ..an English novel about Egypt and an Egyptian novel about England, and moving seamlessly between the two countries and cultures.  It is set against the turbulent history of the Middle East over thirty odd years from the mid-l960s and tells the story of a middle-class educated Egyptian girl, Asya, and follows her progress as she moves between her home in Egypt and her life and studies in England, from secondary school to PH D and also marriage and beyond. It is remarkably perceptive about relationships, especially married ones,  a story of modern Egypt and Egyptian women and an insight into their social, political and sexual world. An absorbing and eye-opening read for women in any culture but emphatically not ' a woman`s book.'

(Bloomsbury)