Mina

Sahar Mandour  |  Literature  |  2012  |  Egypt
The character of this novel is Mina, a talented movie actress in her late thirties. Mina receives awards at the ‘Cannes Film Festival’ for each of her three films, only to receive news of the death of a family member or close friends immediately thereafter. Her optimism fades by these losses and, when her homosexual inclinations are made public by a local magazine, she is forced to leave Beirut. A year later, a friend reporter on BBC contacts her for a series of interviews. She shares perspectives on her life growing up in war-torn Lebanon, cinematic success and violation of personal privacy. Unexpectedly, she decides to return to her home country, armed with a shield of cynicism to figure out her own space.