In the late seventeenth century, Poncet, a French herbalist, travels; To live in Cairo, one of the centers of an unusual alliance between the Ottoman Sultanate and one of the European kingdoms: France.
Although he works in secret, Because he does not have a legal certificate, his fame reaches the French consul, in whom he finds the ideal person to lead a secret embassy from the French king to the Negus, King of Abyssinia, whose declared mission is to treat the Negus, while it seeks to restore French-Catholic control over Abyssinia, in a time of religious and expansionist conflicts. Which the European kingdoms are fighting among themselves.
Poncet soon discovers that the exceptional circumstances of his journey to achieve the goals of the King of France and the Pope are - alone - the solution to the exceptional obstacles that separate him from the one he loves.
In his work, which won the Goncourt Prize for First Novel and the Mediterranean Prize, Ruffin does not content himself with presenting historical facts, but rather takes us with him on a journey full of life between the neighborhoods of Cairo, the mountains of Abyssinia, and the palaces of France. To tell an exciting adventure about love, friendship, and sacrifice in an era full of conflicts, conspiracies, and betrayals.
About the novel Mimosa:
The novel begins with a sentence by Albert Schweitzer: “We live in a dangerous world. Man ruled nature before he learned how to rule himself.”
A fantasy novel calling for kindness to plants. Its events take place in the fifth plant kingdom, which is always exposed to destruction by humans. Queen Mimosa will seek the help of her assistants on a long journey to search for dangerous plants to protect her kingdom. Many events take place in the sequence of the novel, including the happy side. The comedy, the sad side, the love, and will the queen get all the dangerous plants? Why will you perform the farewell anthem? What is the secret of Venus’ love for the peace lily and his attachment to Abu Nawas’s poems? Will they be able to get the yew? Who is Lithops? Its events take place until the end is reached.
In this novel, her imagination will take you to the furthest point... where we escape from our world
We will find solace and consolation in it, and our withdrawal into its imagination is not a withdrawal in the true sense of the word
But it is enough to give us some delicious caution so that we do not feel the power of life and the authority of its demands, which is nothing but a simple withdrawal that is not deep enough for us to forget our real misery...
وتجاوزها لعقبات أدمت قلبها الا انها لم تقبع باكية بل مضت في طريقها متسلحة بصبرها وذكائها وانوثتها حتى ملكت القلوب وحولت النفور لعشق ابدي… نسجت لكم خطاها
Cristina Fernandez Cubas does not introduce her heroines to us easily. She takes us on straight paths at first glance, and at one moment, she turns everything upside down. We discover that her characters are torn between two realities, the separation between which is very precise: the fixed reality, and the imagined or delusional reality. . One of them overpowers the other at times, and at other times a reconciliation occurs between them, without us knowing which of them truly exists, and which of them does not exist.
“Nona’s Room,” which won the Critics’ Prize in Spain (2015) and the National Narrative Award (2016), is a magnifying glass through which we see the complexities of the human soul and the mystery that surrounds our lives without us always succeeding in observing and understanding it. In it, “Cubas” reconsiders childhood and maturity. And loneliness and family, revealing to us that nothing is really as it seems, writing all of this in transparent language and in a unique style that gives it a detective touch, with skill and lightness.
