“A story of love and faith all the more moving for the restraint with which it is written.”
– J. M. Coetzee
“The Translator is un utter joy to read; a novel to savour and treasure.”
– Anne Donovan
“The difficult journey from sun to snow, from friends to strangers, is a central part of this gentle and melancholy novel. ..Aboulela is a wonderfully poetic writer. . . . It is a pleasure to read a novel so full of feeling and yet so serene.”
– Carrie O’Grady, The Guardian
“Aboulela has an unmistakable style, full of poetry and very moving. The Translator is an enveloping story of the tentative possibilities between a man and a woman, and between faiths; two people, and perhaps peoples, between nations. It is an apt, resonant caution filled with love and poignant understanding of the world. It is exactly what fiction ought to be.”
– Todd McEwen
“Aboulela’s lovely, brief story encompasses worlds of melancholy and gulfs between cultures…A miraculous ending….A strikingly poised, cherishable novel.”
– Kirkus Reviews (starred)
“It is refreshing to read a novel that tries to give the Muslims their due. The Muslim characters of The Translator are characters who exist both as individuals and as integral parts of extended families and larger communities. And, what is rather important, they are believing Muslims who do their utmost to live by their faith and tradition. For Aboulela, faith is not an ossified, overbearing cross that crushes its followers and transforms them into proverbial, all-too- familiar fanatics and fundamentalists. It is a liberating force. Her characters live and breath Islam to become fully human, to free themselves from the oppression of their own egos and the crushing burden of uncontrollable desires.….The love story is worked out within a narrative of manners that presents Muslim norms and values, mores and etiquette, as a living, breathing reality…. The Translator is an exceptionally well-crafted and beautifully written novel. Aboulela shows the rich possibilities of living in the West with different, non-Western, ways of knowing and thinking. In Sammar, the heroine of this reviewer’s dreams, she has created a personification of Islam that is as genuine as it is complex.”
– Ziauddin Sardar , The Sunday Herald
“With authentic detail and insight into both cultures, Aboulela painstakingly constructs a truly transformative denouement.”
– Publishers Weekly
“Beautiful passages on Islam’s essential purity and poetry… A sensitive portrayal of love and faith.”
- Kaiama L. Glover, The New York Times Book Review (Editor’s Choice)
“Aboulela’s refined descriptions reveal intense emotion with staggering restraint, our attention assured with her first words.”
- Christine Thomas, Chicago Tribune
“Above all, the book offers the uncluttered pleasure of a story that feels simultaneously reduced to its essence and full to the brim.”
- Elisbeth Lindner, Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“The Translator is a subtle investigation into the meaning of exile and home, doubt and faith, loss and love. The story it tells is sometimes sad, often troubled and troubling; but moves towards a conclusion that’s unforced, affirmative and finally very moving. Aboulela’s writing is always beautifully observed, her voice one of restrained lyricism: she is a writer of rare and original talent.”
- Duncan McLean
“A lyrical journey about exile, loss, and love . . . poetry in motion.”
- The Sunday Times
“The first halal novel written in English.”
- Riffat Yusuf The Muslim News
· Carrie O’Grady, The Guardian”
