Under the auspices of a Christian missionary, eventually Salma makes her way to England, to Exeter, where she finds works as a seamstress - her occupation a clever piece of symbolism: 'I wanted to mend my life,' she says. She spends eight long years in protective custody in a Middle Eastern prison, where her daughter is born and taken from her. If Salma wants to live, she must escape from her tribe or at least escape from being pregnant in one of the book's most horrific scenes, a midwife clumsily tries to abort the fetus.Ī teacher urges Salma to leave her tribe, her family and her culture behind in order to save her life, and thus begins her long journey of exile and her struggle for selfhood. 'Your brother will shoot you between the eyes.' This isn't hyperbole.

'You smeared our name with tar,' her mother snarls after discovering that Salma is pregnant. As an adolescent, Salma falls in love with Hamdan (more precisely, with the image of Hamdan: 'a reflection of a dark face, white teeth and dark curly hair covered with a chequered red-and-white headdress'), and that's when her troubles begin. The threat of an honor killing catalyzes 'The Cry of the Dove,' an unsettling and harrowing novel by Fadia Faqir, a Jordanian now living in England and the author of two other books, 'Nisanit' and 'Pillars of Salt.'Īlready published in England under the title 'My Name Is Salma,' 'The Cry of the Dove' flits between the contemporary life of Sally Asher, living in Exeter, England, and her backstory as Salma, a Hima Bedouin living in a remote part of the Levant. The grotesque term 'honor killing' refers to the murder of a girl or woman by one of her relatives, or by someone in her tribe or community, for an extramarital or premarital affair even victims of rape are murdered in a deeply rooted custom intended to rid the family and the community of shame.

The Cry of the Dove by Fadia Faqir