The Translator Leila Aboulela by Leila Aboulela 9781846970801, 1846970806 instant download after payment.

Leila Aboulela’s assured debut is about a widowed Muslim mother living in Aberdeen who falls in love with a Scottish secular academic.

“A story of love and faith all the more moving for the restraint with which it is written.”  -  J. M. Coetzee

Sammar is a Sudanese widow working as an Arabic translator at a Scottish university. Since the sudden death of her husband, her young son has gone to live with family in Khartoum, leaving Sammar alone in cold, grey Aberdeen, grieving and isolated. But when she begins to translate for Rae, a Scottish Islamic scholar, the two develop a deep friendship that awakens in Sammar all the longing for the life she has repressed. As Rae and Sammar fall in love, she knows they will have to address his lack of faith in all that Sammar holds sacred. 

“The difficult journey from sun to snow, from friends to strangers, is a central part of this gentle and melancholy novel... Aboulela is a wonderfully poetic writer.. It is a pleasure to read a novel so full of feeling and yet so serene.”  -  Carrie O’Grady, The Guardian

An exquisitely crafted meditation on love, both human and divine, The Translator is ultimately the story of one woman’s courage to stay true to her beliefs, herself, and her newfound love.