“Seduction has an edge. If crossed, you either delve deep or fly.” This is the opening line of The Edge of Seduction. It’s a subtle text that relishes the questions it raises and doesn’t answer.

Is it the seduction of death that Amru Afia is speaking of? Is it the seduction of love? Or maybe the seduction of identifying with the stories of others?

This intricate puzzle of a novel explores the urge to love and the urge to die, and tells the story of a memorable, doomed heroine.

The novel is a maze of different stories. There is the frame narrative of journalist Tarek Shahin, who goes to the Hadra slum area of Alexandria, fishing for an interesting story. The primary love story is of medical students Hashem and Sara, told to Shahin by a ragged man he meets in Hadra. There is also the backstory of Sara’s Jewish mother and Muslim father, which takes place in Morocco, Spain and Egypt. And there is the parallel account of Sara’s uncle, who emigrates to Israel and meets an untimely end.

What all these stories have in common is the way in which the different characters fall for the “seduction of self-destruction”—to use the heroine’s words—either by killing themselves, losing their will to live, or acting in ways that will inevitably lead to their death. The stories also pit love against intolerant fundamentalism.

The haunting figure of the beloved Sara towers over the novel as whole. Afia gives us a deft and very feminist presentation of an impressive heroine, a woman who is likened to Tawaddud of the Arabian nights (the resourceful, wise and beautiful slave girl who outsmarts all the men around her). This is a woman for whom a man who never knew her will cry, 16 years after her death.

The language of The Edge of Seduction moves from simple straightforward narration of events to the lyrical. The most tragic of events are narrated in a clean, straight-forward language that intensifies the gravity of the account. The lyrical passages are dedicated to love stories and memories.

However, the use of classical Arabic in the dialogues distances the reader from the characters. It is hard to imagine that Sara would speak to the man she loves in such an elevated tone.

The Edge of Seduction, by Amru Afia. Merit Press, 2004. LE15