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A sizzling new novel set in Taos, New Mexico. The third in the Justine Trilogy, preceded by the award-winning, The Cairo Codex and The Italian Letters. Buy it at your local independent bookstore, 
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« Older Entries Newer Entries »Could the Virgin Mary have been literate?
Tuesday, July 23rd, 2013
It’s more than plausible. Mary of Nazareth’s grandmother, Faustina, came from Mt. Carmel north of Jerusalem. This community was a stronghold of the Essenes, the peoples who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls. In The Cairo Codex, Mary discusses women, writing, and equality with her son, Jesus:
…“Why the papyrus? For writing to family in Palestine?”
“Yes, my son. Family members are hungry for news from us. They ask about how you and your brother are growing up and what it is like to live in this land. They miss us. And your father misses his family.” I take a few clusters of garlic from my pocket to hand to the scribe. My son hesitates before asking the question I knew was pressing on his young mind.
“I have noticed that Rachel and Noha do not write. Can only some women write?”
“All women can write if they are taught how. Just as you were taught to read and write….”
“How did you learn to write, Mother?” my son says, balancing on the edge of the rock and folding his tunic between his tanned legs.
“It is unusual for women to learn to write. You observed well. I was fortunate. My grandmother taught me when I was but a girl. She thought it important for women to be able to do many of the same things men do. Grandmother considered inequality the source of all evil. I wish you could have known her.”
“What did she mean ‘inequality is the source of all evil’?” he puzzles. The tea arrives in two chipped, unmatched cups. I hand the boy a cluster of garlic. My son has an inquiring mind, much like I was as a child. “What do you think she might have meant?”
“I don’t know. To me, most people seem unequal; Noha is not like Rachel, Isaiah is not like Samir.”
“I see the same things. But Grandmother also talked of inequality between the rich and poor, men and women, the educated and uneducated, the old and the young, Jews and pagans, Romans and Israelites. These inequalities lead to misery, hatred and wars, which are evil. Her family came from Mt. Carmel and had many strong ideas about how life should be lived. Many of these ideas I carry with me.”
“But why did God make us unequal if He wanted us to be equal? I don’t understand.”
“I’m not so sure God made us so. Perhaps we did that to ourselves. It is we who choose to obey the powerful and deprive others of their rights. Perhaps God gave us these choices to test our compassion.”
Women, writing, and equality are elegantly interwoven. That is why we are compelled to educate young girls.
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Cairo’s City of the Dead and Girls Education
Monday, July 22nd, 2013
A Community Schools for Girls in the City of the Dead challenges pre-conceptions about what is possible in non-traditional communities. Again, from the forthcoming The Cairo Codex:
“The City of the Dead. Nearly a million of the living joined the thousands buried in Cairo’s notorious cemetery, an area nearly as large as Venice. Small tombs that looked like dollhouses had become home to families who subsisted without basic plumbing and water services. For years, the government had sought to dispel this encroachment upon holy ground, but it had finally given up. Now, small shops and an occasional water faucet made life there somewhat more bearable.
Justine felt as though she was still observing the scene with the uncomprehending eyes of the teen she’d been when her father had brought her there. Flies crowded around the eyes and mouth of the small girl of about five who stood in front of her. Her curly hair, the same color as her skin, looked as though it had never been combed. She wore a faded pink cotton dress with a sash that had come loose on one side; the long sash with a bow in the middle touched the dirt near her bare feet. The young girl stared intently at a dead donkey lying in the middle of the street. Across the back legs of the donkey lay a dog, both surrounded by flies.
She couldn’t take her eyes off the girl. She wanted to hold her, to comb her hair, to chase away the flies, to sew her sash. Such a beautiful child. What does it mean to care? Her western notions connected caring with cleanliness and order and combed hair…and battling flies.
As though on cue, a somewhat older girl emerged from the doorway beside the child. The older girl was wearing a clean blue and white school uniform and carrying a backpack, ready for school. The contrast between the two girls was disconcerting.”
These schools, the reason Justine came to Cairo, are at the heart of the women’s movement in Egypt—in sharp relief from the echoes of abuse now plaguing the great country.
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I was Sexually Harassed in Cairo, but…
Sunday, July 21st, 2013
The recent data on sexual harassment, attacks, rapes, and death of women in Egypt is deeply disturbing. It is as though the Islamist ascendency has awakened the fury against women under the thin patina of civilization. The recent UN report (see the NY Times article by Bruni that I recently posted on Facebook) estimates harassment at 93%+.* Ninety women journalists were sexually harassed in the last few months. In The Cairo Codex (West Hills Press, to be released 8/13), I described my own earlier incident through the experience of my protagonist, anthropologist Justine Jenner:
“…By the time she reached the Roman aqueduct, cutting east through the city, the town was waking up. Bean pots on rollers moved into the side streets; bakers raised their storefronts, displaying layers of Egyptian baladi bread that resembles pita. Young men on bicycles took to the streets.
About a mile from the hotel, she stopped. In this part of the city, new or maintenance construction gave way to houses and stores scarred by vehicle exhaust crumbling around the edges, pressed together like crowded children scrambling for a ball.
Turning away from the Nile, Justine stood for a moment to get her bearings, bending over, hands on her thighs, stretching her back. A hand, not her own, reached under her from behind, firmly stroking between her legs then withdrawing as quickly as it had arrived. A wave of terror shot through her stomach and chest. For a moment, she couldn’t believe what she’d felt. She swung around to see a stooped man in a gray kaftan and woolen scarf limping swiftly away.
She could have caught him easily, but what would she say? What would she do? Would the authorities pay her any mind? Not in Egypt. She turned and ran back to the hotel, stumbling occasionally, shaken by the violation.”
However—and this is a fierce however—that is not my usual experience of Egypt. I have always found Egypt safe, where I could venture into side streets, Tahrir Square, go out in the evenings with other women. So what has happened? What is different?
* I have had questions about UN estimates in the past, including their projection that 95% of Egyptian women have had a clictorectomy.
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Egypt: A Justified Coup?
Friday, July 5th, 2013
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NPR Interview-Egypt in Crisis
Friday, July 5th, 2013
https://soundcloud.com/kgua/linda-lambert-on-the-july-3rd
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Do fictional characters have to be fictional?
Monday, June 24th, 2013
Writing coaches are notorious for saying so—same with writing tutors, magazines, etc. However, many authors, such as one of my favorites, D.H. Lawrence, constructed his characters from the people he knew best—and sometimes got himself in a lot of trouble because of it.
As I ventured into research for The Justine Trilogy—in Cairo, Italy, and Taos—I met fascinating characters: an ambassador, Director of Antiquities, Minister, and a revolutionary in Cairo; a striking geneticist and novelist in Ferrara, a museum director in Fiesole, a Baroness in Tuscany; three archeologists and Pueblo Indians in New Mexico…. A Greek historian here, and Lawrence scholar there. How could I ignore such a rich mine of flamboyant characters?
What was I to do? So, I asked them if they would consent to being characters in my novels. To a person, they were delighted. (However, I will admit that I never directly asked the Supreme Director of Antiquities—but I did rename him!)
What do you think about this lovely conundrum?
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Book Give-Away! Cairo Cats
Sunday, May 5th, 2013
Pre-order my novel The Cairo Codex, e-mail me the receipt, and if you are among the first 20, I will send you a copy of the remarkable Cairo Cats by friend Lorraine Chittock.
“Lorraine Chittock’s photographs could convert the most hardhearted cat hater.” – The Washington Post
Lorraine Chittock’s fascination with Egyptian cats culminated in the gift book, Cairo Cats—Egypt’s Enduring Legacy. During her seven years in Cairo, Ms. Chittock was a wildlife tracker in an urban environment, exploring the nooks and crannies where the feline denizens of the city hide. Cairo Cats pairs intimate and thought-provoking photos with apposite literary passages, tempting the reader to explore tidbits of folklore, religion and poetry from Egypt and the Middle East. Cairo Cats educates in an entertaining and non-threatening way about one of the world’s most complex regions.
The introduction for Cairo Cats was written by Annemarie Schimmel, (1922-2003) a revered and prolific scholar of Islam who taught at the Universities of London, Ankara, Bonn and Harvard. Dedicating her life to encourage a better understanding of the Islamic world, she lectured in more than six languages and published 80 books as well as providing a loving home for her feline friends.
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Death of a Saint
Monday, April 22nd, 2013
Ansaf Aziz, a young woman with sparkling eyes and intelligence from Upper Egypt fell in love with her English teacher, married him and moved to Assuit, where she would give birth to three extraordinary children, one boy and two girls.
Madam Ansaf, as we called her, later moved to Cairo and began a program of micro-loans for poor women before Muhammad Yunus of Bangladesh (winner of the Nobel Prize) thought of the idea. She had been successfully carrying out this loan program for nearly 20 years when we met her in 1989—the year my husband and I moved to Cairo. She loaned monies to women so that she could earn an income for the family and become independent entrepreneurs. A bean pot, a sewing machine, a small oven, plus skills, and craft bazaars for fund-raising—support wherever needed.
Soon after our arrival in Cairo, where I worked as a State Department envoy working with Egyptians to set up a national curriculum center, we had dinner with Andrea Rugh, a Harvard anthropologist and author of multiple books on the Middle East. We asked Andrea, who is now with the Middle East Institute, how we might work and learn with the poor people of Cairo without going through the cumbersome bureaucracies. She took us to meet Madam Ansaf, a close friend of hers and the focus of the text she was working on at the time.
From that day forward, Ansaf adopted us and our three children when they visited. We had many dinners at her home in Shoubra and became friends with her family, especially son Hanna and his wife Laurence and daughters. Her joy was contagious as though she knew that her path was blessed. I had the honor of accompanying her into the back streets of Boulak and meeting with groups of women who gathered to talk about their lives. As a Coptic Christian going into Muslim homes, she annoyed the Brotherhood, but no one dare touch her. For the next two decades, we contributed to her work.
My husband, Morgan, then working as a page editor for The Middle East Times and part-time instructor at American University, Cairo, wrote a tribute to her entitled, “Mother Teresa of Cairo.” Indeed she was.
I remember when she was around 85 (she thought—no one knew for sure) and she had never been to a doctor. Her son told her that as long as she was doing God’s work she would be well. Her grandson, Nader Wahbi, just wrote to us that his grandmother turned her faith into action. Indeed she did.
We last saw Ansaf in May, 2011, when we visited Cairo to learn about the aftermath of the revolution. She was in decline by then, but insisted on staying in her own home, which was leaning significantly as a result of the last earthquake. She would eat very little and told me, “I cannot eat when I know there are so many without food.”
Madam Ansaf, known as the Mother of the Poor of Boulak, was a saint. She passed away peacefully on March 10, 2013.
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Advanced Praise for The Cairo Codex!
Tuesday, April 16th, 2013
The Cairo Codex is a riveting novel that portrays the unique bonds between two powerful women separated by millennia. Their relationship foreshadows a seismic shift in the Egyptian landscape. A splendidly researched and original historical novel that evokes the beautiful prose and exotic setting of The Red Tent.
-Jeffrey Small, Bestselling Author of The Jericho Deception and The Breath of God
Lambert’s life in Egypt was the stimulus for this multi-layered historical novel. The Cairo Codex combines the three revealed religions with modern and historical characters, suspense, contemporary Egyptian politics and the challenges of life in present day Egypt. This creates an altogether fascinating narrative that is hard to put down!
-Dr. Waguida El Bakary, Professor Emeritus,
American University, Cairo
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Countdown to The Cairo Codex
Saturday, April 13th, 2013
Four months from today–August 13–The Cairo Codex will be published by West Hills Press (the fiction imprint of Hundreds of Heads). In anticipation of this event, I will write about what I’ve learned in the process, provide highlights from the new novel, and describe a tour of Egypt visiting the fascinating venues where the novel takes place. I’ll announce contests…pose questions…and invite you to upcoming events.
Take this exciting journey with me….Linda
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