Bea, an American studying Arabic, has traveled to Syria as the country is slowly drifting toward civil war, to view a certain sacred text in its original language. The text, which tells the story of the lovers Leila and Qais, makes use of the famed 99 words for love in Arabic. Bea is impatient to see the text with her own eyes, but while she waits (practicing her Arabic and requesting the text at the National Library again and again), she bears witness to a different, real-life love story. The relationship between Nisrine, her host family's Indonesian maid, and Adel, a young policeman who catches first Bea's attention and then Nisrine's, will have ramifications for everyone involved, and will alter Bea's perspective on her work, her host country and the nature of love. Emily Robbins weaves a luminous, heartbreaking narrative in her debut novel, A Word for Love.
Bea watches the slow growth of the love between Nisrine and Adel: brief conversations, scraps of poetry, the "language that develops in love." Lonely, yet comforted by her friendship with Nisrine and her role in the family, Bea looks for ways to "grow [her] heart; that is, to feel more, and to find more things to love." While Bea does find more things (and people) to love, it inevitably causes her pain.
A lyrical, bittersweet story that raises more questions than it answers, Robbins's debut explores the gaps in translation (both linguistic and cultural), the problems of divided loyalties, and many words for love. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams