Finding Mahmoud: Volume Two

by Tom Filer

Peggy Cambell, 27, meets Mahmoud Allam, 29, an Egyptian surgeon at a disco in London. They fall in love and sail off to make a new life in Zagazig, a provincial city on the Nile Delta. Peggy finds herself imprisoned in a world of hostile and hysterical women, deprived of her birthrights in the west. Learning ugly truths about Mahmouds past, she wants to leave but becomes involved with a commune of women weavers. Supporting Mahmouds mother and sisters in their attempts to achieve freedom, Peggy sets loose the force that even Mahmoud cannot stop. His nemesis, Sami, risks intimacy with Mahmouds mother. Though Mahmouds heart is in the future, one foot remains planted in the past.

328 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2001