Passage

Kathleen faces surgery for a potentially fatal brain tumour while her husband Robert waits through the operation and its uncertain aftermath. Their marriage is shadowed by Robert’s brother Alan, the third point in a love triangle that has endured for years. Seeking distance from illness and old betrayals, the three travel to Egypt and descend into the tombs and passages of the Valley of the Kings.

Kathleen’s changed relation to memory and identity gives the ancient landscape an unsettling intimacy. Their Egyptian guide, Ashraf, becomes increasingly involved with the travellers while negotiating a country still marked by the political upheavals that followed the Arab Spring. Moving among different perspectives, the novel connects bodily vulnerability, buried desire and the archaeology of death as its characters confront what can be remembered, forgiven or carried forward.