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The story of one man’s love for a woman, that woman’s love for her music and her country, and of an entire world’s love for its idols.
A poet and a singer, unrequited love and a troubled national history: these are the subjects of Sélim Nassib’s I Loved You for Your Voice. Inspired by the life and legacy of one of the world’s most beloved singers, the story of Om Kalthoum is told here through the eyes of Ahmad Rami, the poet who wrote her lyrics and loved her in vain all his life. Kalthoum, forced to disguise herself as a boy at the outset of her career, eventually rises to international fame and becomes a living symbol of her country’s rebirth. Spanning five decades, Kalthoum’s story intertwines with the history of Egypt in a novel that is as faithful as it is imaginative.
“A dazzling masterpiece.”—Nigrizia (Italy)
“Umm Kalthoum’s life is the stuff of legend, and now it is a fine novel.”—Richard McGill Murphy, Words Without Borders
“With a voice adored by Bob Dylan, Robert Plant and millions across the Arab world, Umm Kulthum rejected gender norms with her powerful, political music.”—Tom Faber, The Guardian
“Told as passionately as the story it recounts was lived.”—The Arab-American Dialogue
“Beautiful . . . The creatively brilliant conversations feel so authentic that one has to remind oneself that this is fiction and not a documentary.”—Sami Asmar, Al Jadid
“The book is fascinating both for its sheer poetry and because its author knows how to magically recreate the colorful atmosphere of a bygone Cairo.” —Babilonia
“The convincing portrait of a woman caught between modernity and tradition, the sacred and the profound.”—La Repubblica (Italy)
“She is great, she really is…She is really great. She is gone now but not forgotten.”—Bob Dylan, Nobel Prize Laureate, on Umm Kalthoum