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La Sposa Di Damasco (2009)

by Stephanie Saldana(Favorite Author)

3.97 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

8854118273 (ISBN13: 9788854118270)

languge

English

genre

Memoir & Autobiography

publisher

Newton Compton

review 1: I don't usually go for memoirs like this, and this book did fulfill the fears I held about the spiritual aspect of the memoir. While I appreciate that she found her faith, a lot of it seemed rather like she chose to believe certain things because it sounded like something she'd like to believe, and that others can believe other things if they like. I believe there's a passage where she says two ideas that oppose each other can still be true... I guess I'm not sure about the logic of that. Anyway, the love story and aforementioned issues aside, the descriptions of her interactions with the people in Damascus were intriguing (and the reason I decided to read the book at all in the first place), and she does an excellent job of humanizing Christians and Muslims rather than s... moretereotyping everyone in their religion. If the book had contained more about that than about her own story, I would have been more than happy to give this book a higher rating.
review 2: In August of 2012, the Wall Street Journal featured a column by Stephanie Saldana on the kidnapping and execution of Jesuit priest and Abbot Paolo Dall'Oglio by rebel forces. At the end of the poignant column, the credit said that Stephanie Saldana was the author of "The Bread of Angels," and I knew that I had to read it. It paints an intimate portrait of a young woman of Mexican-American heritage from San Antonio, Texas, who decides to spend a year in Damascus. It could be described by readers as a travelogue, a story of broken romance, or yet another story of a spiritual quest. It has elements of all of these. For me, in light of our possibly deciding to attack Syria, it had a different impact. It showed how little we know about places with rich histories, like Syria. Even the author, who had studied Arabic in university and knew about Middle East history, was unprepared for what she found. The people in her story are richly drawn, and they all welcome her, and her 'landlord' adopts her as a granddaughter and invites her for coffee two or three times a day. Syrians too know very little about Americans, and Stephanie certainly opens their eyes too. Understanding among countries will never be advanced by politicians no matter how high minded or well educated. International amity and cooperation is built on the thousands of little interactions among real people, like Stephanie and her grandfather, called the Baron. This would be a great selection for a book club, and I'm going to offer it to my wife as an idea. It's a timely, but timeless read. Highly recommended. less

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