Why a Booktrail?
2011, 800 years earlier: Separated by centuries, linked by maps and the story of home
The Map of Salt and Stars
What you need to know before your trail
It’s 2011 and Nour’s father has just died. Her mother, a cartographer who creates unusual, hand-painted maps, decides to move Nour and her sisters from New York City back to Syria to be closer to their family. But the country Nour’s mother once knew is changing, and it isn’t long before protests and shelling threaten their quiet Homs neighborhood. Soon she and her family are forced to flee as refugees across seven countries of the Middle East and North Africa in search of safety. Will they ever find a place called home again?
800 years earlier: Rawiya, sixteen and a widow’s daughter, is restless and longing to see the world so she leaves home to seek her fortune. This will give her the chance to help her poor mother too. Disguising herself as a boy named Rami, she becomes an apprentice to al-Idrisi, who has been commissioned by King Roger II of Sicily to create a map of the world.They embark on an epic journey across the Middle East and the north of Africa in the search of trails, stories and ultimately hope
Travel Guide
Syria, Middle East and Africa
A deep immersion into the richly varied cultures of the Middle East and North Africa, The Map of Salt and Stars follows the journeys of Nour and Rawiya as they travel along identical paths across the region eight hundred years apart. This is the story of the mapmaker and how the first and most detailed map was created.
Their journeys are epic ones:
Modern day, the story takes the family from New York all the way to Syria. This was one their homeland but the city now is a dusty shadow of its former self.
“The whole world turns red from the screaming down the street, Sirens come from everywhere at once. The city has burst like a blister”
“Twisted fences and windows shutters poke out like teeth”
The story returning to ones homeland only to have to flee again is heartbreaking. Confusion, anger, childhoods cut short, lives even shorter and families broken. The future a faded dream enveloped in a nightmare of dust and broken hope
The story of Rawiya
This is a fictional take says the author but that of Al -Idridius it, He was indeed a mapmaker born in Ceuta around 1099 ad who did indeed collaborate with the Norman King II in Palermo. He created what is now knows as the Tabula Rogeriana, the most accurate world map ever made to that date, as well as The Book of Roger and the silver palanisphere.
“Stories map the souls in the guise of words”
The map was created with the south at the top, as was common with Arab mapmakers at the time. The manuscript survives to this day, but it’s hard to find copies of it even in libraries. You can see a manuscript without maps here: findit.library.yale.edu/catalog/digcoll:177851
The myth of the roc
This actually comes from The Thousand and one Nights ( serpents also appears in the story of Sinbad the sailor)
Early Arab and Islamic astronomy is a particular interest for the author and all of the names and histories are based on fact.
Booktrail Boarding Pass: The Map of Salt and Stars
Destination: Syria, Middle East, Africa, Ceuta Author/Guide: Jennifer Zeynab Joukhadar Departure Time: 2000s, 8oo years earlier
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