I, the Divine

Named by her grandfather after the "divine" Sarah Bernhardt, the Lebanese-American artist Sarah Nour El-Din tells her story. She begins a memoir, a novel--and abandons every attempt in the course of the first chapter. What emerges from these fictional fragments is extraordinary--a woman, & a life, perhaps more real than any we have known in literature. Raised in a hybrid family shaped by divorce & remarriage, & by Beirut in wartime, Sarah finds a fragile peace in self-imposed exile in the United States. Her vibrant character has survived rape, her mother's suicide, her sister's madness, & the impossibility of escaping her family. Her extraordinary dignity is supported by her best friend, a grown-up son, occasional sensual pleasures, & her determination to tell her own story. Passionate in her loves & even in her failures, Sarah Nour El-Din will walk off the page into the reader's life, even as she struggles to compose her own.Alameddine, Rabih is the author of 'I, the Divine' with ISBN 9780393042092 and ISBN 039304209X.