Un mapa de sal y estrellas / The Map of Salt and Stars - Jennifer Zynab Maccani

Un viaje, ochocientos aos de diferencia, dos protagonistas: Nour, una refugiada siria que busca seguridad, y Rawiya, una aventurera medieval, aprendiz de un cartgrafo legendario.

Es el verano de 2011, y Nour acaba de perder a su padre por cncer. Su madre, una cartgrafa que crea mapas inusuales pintados a mano, decide trasladar a Nour y sus hermanas de Nueva York a Siria para estar ms cerca de su familia. Pero el pas est cambiando, y no pasa mucho tiempo antes de que las protestas y los bombardeos amenacen su tranquilo vecindario. Cuando una bomba destruye la casa de Nour y casi le quita la vida, ella y su familia se ven obligados a elegir: quedarse y arriesgarse a ms violencia o huir como refugiados a travs de siete pases del Medio Oriente y el Norte de frica en busca de seguridad. A medida que su viaje se vuelve cada vez ms difcil, el hogar de Nour se convierte en un sueo que ella lucha por recordar.

Ms de ochocientos aos antes, Rawiya, de diecisis aos e hija de una viuda, sabe que debe hacer algo para ayudar a su empobrecida madre. Inquieta y con ganas de ver el mundo, se va de casa a buscar fortuna. Disfrazndose de un chico llamado Rami, se convierte en aprendiz de Al-Idrisi, el cartgrafo comisionado por el rey Roger II de Sicilia para crear un mapa del mundo. Con l, Rawiya se embarca en un viaje pico a travs del Medio Oriente y el norte de frica, donde se encuentra con feroces bestias mticas, batallas picas y figuras histricas reales.

Un mapa de sal y estrellas resita los titulares de hoy en la historia, donde el dolor del exilio y el triunfo del coraje reviven una y otra vez.

ENGLISH DESCRIPTION

This powerful and lyrical debut novel is to Syria what The Kite Runner was to Afghanistan; the story of two girls living eight hundred years apart-a modern-day Syrian refugee seeking safety and an adventurous mapmaker's apprentice-"perfectly aligns with the cultural moment" (The Providence Journal) and "shows how interconnected two supposedly opposing worlds can be" (The New York Times Book Review).

This "beguiling" (Seattle Times) and stunning novel begins in the summer of 2011. Nour has just lost her father to cancer, and her mother moves Nour and her sisters from New York City back to Syria to be closer to their family. In order to keep her father's spirit alive as she adjusts to her new home, Nour tells herself their favorite story-the tale of Rawiya, a twelfth-century girl who disguised herself as a boy in order to apprentice herself to a famous mapmaker.

But the Syria Nour's parents knew is changing, and it isn't long before the war reaches their quiet Homs neighborhood. When a shell destroys Nour's house and almost takes her life, she and her family are forced to choose: stay and risk more violence or flee across seven countries of the Middle East and North Africa in search of safety-along the very route Rawiya and her mapmaker took eight hundred years before in their quest to chart the world. As Nour's family decides to take the risk, their journey becomes more and more dangerous, until they face a choice that could mean the family will be separated forever.

Following alternating timelines and a pair of unforgettable heroines coming of age in perilous times, The Map of Salt and Stars is the "magical and heart-wrenching" (Christian Science Monitor) story of one girl telling herself the legend of another and learning that, if you listen to your own voice, some things can never be lost.