The Bread of Angels: A Journey to Love and Faith (Hardcover)
Description
“Above all, a love story . . . a page-turner that keeps you up nights.”
—Geraldine Brooks
In 2004, twenty-seven-year old Stephanie Saldaña arrives in Damascus with a broken heart and a haunted family history that she has crossed the world to escape. She has come on a fellowship to study the role of Jesus in Islam, but speaks very little Arabic, has no friends in the city, and has no place to live. Nor is it an ideal time to be in the region—the United States has recently invaded neighboring Iraq, and refugees are flooding into the streets of Damascus. Still, Stephanie does the only thing she can think of: she begins knocking on doors in the Christian Quarter, asking strangers if they have a room to rent. So begins The Bread of Angels, the unforgettable memoir of one woman’s search for faith, love, and the meaning of her life in the place she least expects to find it.
Before long, Stephanie is offered an airy room in a glorious, dilapidated house. She begins to stumble through Arabic and to make the Old City her home. But after a series of disheartening developments, she leaves to spend a month in an ancient Christian monastery carved into the Syrian desert cliffs. There in the austere, beautiful landscape she finally begins to face the past she has been running from and to confront her wavering faith.
She is joined in her search for God and self-knowledge by a series of improbable teachers: the Sheikha, a female Muslim scholar who guides her through the Quran; Hassan, an Iraqi refugee who shows her the poetry that exists in war; the Baron, an Armenian neighbor who fusses over her like an eccentric relative; and finally Frédéric, a young French novice monk who becomes her best friend. Soon it is clear that she is falling in love again—with God, with her own life, and, unexpectedly, with Frédéric. But will Frédéric, on the cusp of taking his final vows, choose God or Stephanie?
The Bread of Angels is the story of the unlikely year that changed Stephanie Saldaña’s life. Wise, funny, and heartbreaking by turns, it celebrates the beauty of faith, the necessity of self-discovery, and the possibility of true love.
About the Author
Stephanie Saldaña grew up in Texas and received a B.A. from Middlebury College and a master’s degree from Harvard Divinity School. She was a Watson and a Fulbright scholar and has won several awards for her poetry. She lives in Jerusalem and teaches at the Honors College for Liberal Arts and Sciences, a partnership of Bard College and Al-Quds University.
Praise for The Bread of Angels: A Journey to Love and Faith…
From Publishers Weekly:
Starred Review: With a family history of untimely death and madness, Saldaña easily took to a career of danger journalism, reporting from risky locales. In a deliberate attempt to stop courting danger, Saldaña attempted a normal life at Harvard Divinity School. When the love affair that had provided her a sense of normalcy ended, she opted to take the Fulbright scholarship she had won to study the Muslim Jesus in Damascus, arriving in Syria in 2004 amid the post-9/11 war in Iraq. The tension of American foreign policy and Saldaña’s own vivid memories of death and destruction witnessed during her reporting life earlier in the Middle East haunted her, particularly when she embarked upon the Catholic rite of spiritual exercises at the Syrian desert monastery of Mar Musa. In lovely prose and with elements of foreshadowing, Saldaña shares her struggles to become religious again and overcome feelings that God has abandoned her. Touches of melodrama weigh down an otherwise gorgeous and enlightening read, as Saldaña’s scholarly knowledge of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism subtly infuse her story. An Eat, Pray, Love for the intellectual set, Saldaña’s beautiful memoir should not be missed. (Feb.)
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Praise for The Bread of Angels:
“A remarkable, wise, and lovely book from a truly gifted new writer, The Bread of Angels brims with originality and insight. There is poetry here—the language and the depth of attention recall the young Annie Dillard. But this is, above all, a love story, and a compelling one. Not many people can write transcendent, mystical prose and also create a page-turner that keeps you up nights. Stephanie Saldaña’s achievement is extraordinary.”
—Geraldine Brooks, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of March
“In the tradition of Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love, Stephanie Saldaña’s The Bread of Angels is a stunning memoir that is both a contemporary spiritual quest and a sweet, surprising love story . . . Carefully observed, beautifully detailed, structured like a ceremony, The Bread of Angels takes us from a fallen world into a luminous, resurrected one through faith and love and the exquisite skill of a fine writer who writes like an angel!”
—Julia Alvarez, author of How the García Girls Lost Their Accents
“Brace yourself for an intense inner and outer journey. Bread of Angels is a many-layered personal story, ricocheting from Damascus to Texas to the desert fathers to scruffy Cambridge. A passionate young scholar confronts war, love, the mysteries of language, and God. Stephanie Saldaña is up to the task. A brilliant debut.”
—Frances Mayes, author of Under the Tuscan Sun
“A fragrant, elegantly observed journey that captures the dilapidated glory of Damascus and the resilient wit of its people. Saldaña’s tale of spiritual dislocation and self-discovery is remarkable for its poignancy and keen intelligence.”
—Azadeh Moaveni, author of Lipstick Jihad and Honeymoon in Tehran
“The Bread of Angels is dazzling, delicious, wise, brilliantly funny, endearing in every way. It is a love letter to the Middle East and to one’s own entire life, replete with doubt and fear, faith and deep connection. A masterpiece.”
—Naomi Shihab Nye, author of 19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East
