We Are All Equally Far from Love

A young woman is instructed by her boss to write a letter to an older man. His reply begins an enigmatic but passionate love affair conducted entirely in letters. Until, that is, his letters stop coming...but did the letters ever reach their intended recipient? Only the teenage Afaf, who works at the local post office, would know. Her duty is to open the mail and inform her collaborator father of the contents - until she finds a mysterious set of love letters, for which she selects another destiny. Afaf has lived in shame ever since her mother left her father for another man. And in this novel, her story is followed in turn by another: the story of a woman who leaves her husband for someone else, to whom she declares her love in a letter - The chain of stories that make up this singular novel form a wrenching examination of relationships and their limits - relationships tenuous, oblique, and momentous. In prose at once fierce and subtle, We Are All Equally Far from Love is a haunting portrait of alienation and desire. Adania Shibli, born in Palestine in 1974, is the author of Touch, also available from Clockroot Books. Paul Starkey is the author of Modern Arabic Literature and a prolific translator. "Shibli is widely recognized as an innovative writer who is breaking literary tradition in her native Arabic - Touch is both remarkable and difficult, beautifully lucid and yet also mysterious - This is not a book to be shelved once finished." - Patricia Sarrafian Ward, the Electronic Intifada