—Sarah Schulman, author of Girls, Visions and Everything
“With the beguiling, brainy, bi-national Sarah Nour El-Din, Rabih Alameddine has created a remarkably memorable character. . . . Alameddine creates a group portrait of startling originality and a journey not to be missed.”
—Miami Herald
“Alameddine’s novel is an authentic testament to how we each struggle to make sense of our past to enhance our future. Like so many Americans with roots across the ocean, Sarah is trying desperately to define herself as an independent soul by separating from the old family, the old world. Her journey (at once heart-wrenching and heartwarming) reveals that the odyssey of identity requires that we must gather our families close in order to understand ourselves better.”
—Susanne Pari, author of The Fortune Catcher
Copyright © 2001 by Rabih Alameddine
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
First published as a Norton paperback 2002
For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110
The text of this book is composed in Walbaum MT
Composition by Tom Ernst
Manufacturing by the Haddon Craftsmen, Inc.
Book design by Brooke Koven
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Alameddine, Rabih.
I, the divine : a novel in first chapters / Rabih Alameddine.
p. cm.
ISBN 0-393-04209-X
1. Lebanese Americans—Fiction. 2. Women artists—Fiction.
I. Title.
PS3551.L215 I3 2001
813’.54—dc21
2001031293
ISBN 0-393-32356-0 pbk.
W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10110
www.wwnorton.com
W. W. Norton & Company Ltd., Castle House, 75/76 Wells Street,
London W1T 3QT
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I, The Divine Page 24
