Aphramia

About this book

Between the walls of an ancient monastery and beneath a sky filled with "cloud birds," the journey of Aphramia begins; a girl who was no mere daughter of a departed patriarch, but a riddle walking on two feet. Is she the theologian who earned the highest academic degrees, or is she a reincarnated Mary Magdalene, sent anew to walk the path of sorrows in the alleys of the Old City of Jerusalem? In "Aphramia," time melts away and the boundaries between a deep past and a troubled present dissolve. The story opens with an assumed mental breakdown that lands her in a psychiatric hospital, yet what doctors see as illness, Aphramia experiences as revelation; she possesses "rooms the size of heavens and earth," and believes the body is only a "shirt" worn by the soul on an endless journey of reincarnation. The novel takes us from the cold of monasteries and the solemnity of priests to the warmth of Jerusalem's streets fragrant with olive oil and incense, where destinies intertwine between Ahmed, the antiques shopkeeper who sees in her the Magdalene, and Murad, the young Muslim man who falls into the seduction of her love.