Heaven on Earth

Jordanien in einigen Jahrzehnten: die Welt ist mehr oder wenig so, wie wir sie kennen. Die USA gibt es noch, den Israel-Palästina-Konflikt, das jordanische Parlament. Die Technologie hat sich weiterentwickelt, ist uns aber immer noch bekannt. Worauf sich Zaghmout in seinem Zukunftsroman konzentriert, ist das ewige Leben. Dieses ist möglich geworden, zumindest für die Reichen. Wer altert, kann sich in junge Jahre zurückversetzen lassen, man kann sogar wieder Kind werden. Von dieser Situation ausgehend spielt Zaghmout die verschiedenen Fragen durch, die sich durch die Möglichkeit des ewigen Lebens stellen. Was geschieht mit einer Gesellschaft, in der es keinen Generationenwechsel gibt? Was geschieht mit Beziehungen, die ewig dauern? Darf man alt werden, wenn das nicht mehr zwingend ist? Kann man sein Leben noch einmal leben? Sehr unterhaltsam, eine genussreiche Lektüre! cn

The year: sometime in the 2090s. The location: Jordan. Aging is reversible thanks to major advances in bioscience and nanotechnology. But in a world where eternal youth has become a reality, complications arise. Journalist Janna Abdallah is at the forefront of these changes: her brother Jamal contributed to many of the medical advances that have brought such profound changes to humanity over the past few decades, yet he has chosen to forego age suppression in order to experience a natural death. Because reproduction is strictly regulated, the opportunity to create new life throws the Abdallah family into turmoil.

Fadi Zaghmout's best-selling debut novel The Bride of Amman was groundbreaking for its intimate, sympathetic treatment of women's issues, homosexuality, and marriage in the Middle East. Heaven on Earth is no less revolutionary, at once a searingly personal account of one family's struggle to embrace the future that is now, and also a look at the way Jordanian society has had to reimagine itself at the end of the twenty-first century.

Fadi Zaghmout is a social-media specialist, blogger, and author. His first novel The Bride of Amman was published in the Arabic language in Jordan in January 2012, addressing issues of gender and sexuality in the city of Amman. His second novel, Heaven on Earth, was published in November 2014; it is a work of speculative fiction that posits a near future where science defeats ageing. Fadi holds an MA in Creative Writing and Critical Thinking from the University of Sussex in the UK. He has been an active blogger since 2006 and has a Twitter following of around 370,000.