News Release
March 2001
(Bethlehem,
Pennsylvania) -- Ruth Knafo Setton will read from and discuss her new
novel, THE ROAD TO FEZ, at Moravian on Tuesday, April 3, at 8:00 p.m.,
in Prosser Auditorium. Setton will read from her own works for the evening's
program, which is free and open to the public.
The Road to Fez is gorgeously written, erotically charged
first novel of love and self-discovery that tells the story of 18-year-old
Brit Lek’s return to Morocco, her birthplace. Brit plans to fulfill
her mother’s dying wish that she make a pilgrimage to Fez to the
grave of Suleika, an achingly beautiful 19th century Jewish martyr revered
by both Arabs and Jews. But Brit gets sidetracked when she falls in
love with her Uncle Gaby, her mother’s passionate, restless younger
brother and the town womanizer.
Gaby’s and Brit’s forbidden love deepens
against a richly woven tapestry composed of fragments of Suleika’s
brief, mysterious life — pieces of a puzzle that don’t quite
fit together — as well as magical, luminous tales that reflect
the intricacies of Moroccan-Jewish life. The Road to Fez is itself a
journey of desire that unfolds in surprising revelations, and the ultimate
realization that love transcends death.
Ruth Knafo Setton was born in Morocco. The recipient of
fellowships from the NEA,PEN, and the Pennsylvania Council on the Ares,
she has published fiction, creative nonfiction and poetry in many journals
and anthologies. She is Writer-in-Residence for the Berman Center for
Jewish Studies and the English Department at Lehigh University.
