CHICAGO: In Rajia Hassib’s fantastic novel, “A Pure Heart,” amid the teeming millions of people who live in Cairo, Egypt, are the Gubran girls, Rose and Gameela, two sisters who are like two sides of a coin; different in every way, but connected nonetheless. Life in the sprawling city keeps the girls linked to their roots: Rose to the ancient Egyptian civilization and culture that has become her life and career, and Gameela to the present.
But when Rose leaves for New York, after marrying an American journalist, to pursue her PhD, she and Gameela grow apart. Seven years later, Rose returns home after Gameela is killed in a terrorist attack to find out how, and why, her sister was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Readers first meet Rose in her family’s apartment, sifting through her sister’s belongings. Gameela is gone but the childhood room the girls used to share is the same as it always was. Rose collects Gameela’s things before heading back to New York; as an Egyptologist and archeologist, it is in her nature to collect things and piece together a story.
Moving between the Big Apple and Cairo, Hassib masterfully connects lives and cultures, shifting seamlessly between opposing sisters and opposing worlds. Rose is imbedded in a life at the Metropolitan Museum of Art where she is working on an ancient Egypt exhibit, while Gameela is partaking in a revolution half a world away. Through her characters, Hassib is able to connect history and the present, beautifully linking ancient Egyptian practices to Rose’s life as she searches for answers to the many secrets her sister kept.
Hassib’s novel flows like a wave, moving up and down with a rhythm that connects lives through the dead, their relics, and their past. Hassib touches upon classism and politics, and the generational gap that divides parents and children in an ever-evolving political world. She is able to draw distinct lines between people, and while there is a mystery at the heart of her story, Hassib’s characters are grounded in their convictions, no matter how far from Egypt they go.
