University of Arkansas Press Publishes Stories Weaving in and out of Egypt and America

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The Time Between Places, by Pauline Kaldas

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – The Time Between Places: Stories that Weave in and Out of Egypt and America, by Pauline Kaldas ($19.95, paper; $65, unjacketed cloth), has been published by the University of Arkansas Press.

The collection of 20 stories delves into the lives of Egyptian characters, from those living in Egypt to those who have immigrated to the United States. Laila Halaby, author of Once in a Promised Land and West of the Jordan, said of the collection, “The Time between Places is one of those remarkable books that lets you in behind closed doors, offering a collection of tales that illustrates what it means to leave, to start over, to live in two worlds. In lyrical prose that is powerful in its subtlety, Kaldas’s stories tell of quiet conflicts, unfulfilled dreams, and swallowed ambitions.” Marcia Douglas, author of Notes from a Winter’s Book of Cures and Spells, says Kaldas writes with a “unique understanding of the tensions which surround the immigrant experience.”

Pauline Kaldas was born in Egypt and immigrated to the United States in 1969, and she says that her experience as a young immigrant living in the U.S. is the basis for her collection. “After my family immigrated to the United States, we used to call Egypt, particularly on holidays,” she said. “I remember the preparation and the urgency of these calls. Egypt is about seven hours ahead of the United States. Sometimes, we had to get up especially early to avoid the rush on these days. The phone call had to be made through an operator, and the connection was not always clear. The poor connection and the expense of the call made it difficult to have a real conversation, and all we could really say to each other is ‘hello’ and ‘how are you’ and ‘happy holiday’ over and over. Perhaps it was those phone calls that were the most poignant reminder of the distance between us. I always felt a sense of dissatisfaction afterwards — while there was joy in hearing someone’s voice, I was left with only the awareness of how far away we were from each other. The awareness of distance is what pulls together the stories in this collection. It is a strange feeling to be separated not only by actual physical space but also by time. My hope is that the title evokes this idea of moving away from a place and from people — the way physical and temporal distance becomes a tangible manifestation of the emotional distance experienced as a result of immigration.”

Kaldas is associate professor of English at Hollins University and the author of Letters from Cairo and Egyptian Compass. She is co-editor of the University of Arkansas Press’ Dinarzad’s Children: An Anthology of Contemporary Arab American Fiction, now in its second edition.