A Girl Made of Dust

A "beautifully written, lyrical . . . completely believable" prize-winning novel about a girl's coming of age in war-torn Lebanon ( Publishers Weekly ). In her peaceful town outside Beirut, Ruba is slowly awakening to the shifting contours within her household: hardly speaking and refusing to work, her father has inexplicably withdrawn from his family in favor of his favorite armchair; her once-youthful mother looks so sad that Ruba imagines her heart must have withered like a fig in the heat; and Ruba's brother, Naji, is spending less time with Ruba than he is with older friends, some of whom carry guns. In trying to salvage her family, Ruba uncovers a secret from her father's past. It sends her on a journey far from the fantasies of youth and into a brutal reality where men kill in the name of faith and race, old wrongs remain unforgiven, and where nothing less than self-sacrifice and unity can offer survival. But as Israeli troops invade...