Elsewhere, Home

This fantastic collection of stories from Aboulela (Lyrics Alley) examines the alienation of individuals torn between two societies. The 13 tales involve disparate protagonists, but all focus on culture, religion, and identity. In “Something Old, Something New,” a Scotsman travels to Khartoum to marry his Sudanese fiancée. In “The Boy from the Kebab Shop,” the secular daughter of a Scottish father and Egyptian mother finds herself attracted to a devout Muslim man. “The Museum” features a doomed romance between an affluent Sudanese student and a provincial but brilliant Scottish classmate. The collection’s highlight, “Souvenirs,” follows an oil rig worker searching for paintings in Khartoum in order to show his Scottish wife the “malleable pieces, not the random whole” that represent his complex childhood and nation. Each story is earnest and engrossing, holding surprising depth for tales so compact. Aboulela confronts and dissects Western and African stereotypes of Islam, Muslims, and immigrants, and beautifully renders the more universal challenge of cultural homelessness. Eleven of these stories have been previously published, and read together, they wonderfully coalesce. Visiting many of the themes she grapples with in her novels, Aboulela ties together her expanding oeuvre with this poignant, impressive collection. (Feb.)