DELPHINE, winner of the 2011 Clay Reynolds Novella Prize, published 2012 by Texas Review Press

CLICK HERE TO BUY DELPHINE

Because of her extraordinary dark-haired beauty, Delphine became a reluctant success, first as a model, then as an actress.  Her work with a great French film director brought her international movie stardom.  A famous Italian director gave her a daughter.  Still searching for something else in her life, Delphine and her little girl explored the world together, from London to Vietnam, Paris to Istanbul, and beyond.  Fascinated by the Middle East, she explored and lived in many parts of the ancient world, including Palestine.  Men loved her and she loved some of them, but still she was restless.  Deeply affected when she sees the massive wall severing Palestinian lands from Israeli territory, Delphine is determined to learn the facts and see first-hand the hardships faced by ordinary Palestinian citizens.  Eventually, she raises the money to produce and star in a movie about the Palestinian territories.  Although the working conditions are brutal and dangerous, she is determined to finish the movie, even if it's the last she ever makes.

__________________________________________________
"The Allure of this narrative is deceptive in that it offers a cunning misdirection.  Apparently, it is about a young, beautiful, talented, intelligent, self-sufficient, self-confident woman who dictates terms for life herself and to hell with everyone else, but almost before it's realized, the reader is drawn into a much more compassionate and caring story of involvement, commitment, and even love, not for a person but for a people.  By the end, one cannot help but to have fallen in love with her, as well, and to feel how deeply she feels her need to give herself and her talent in an attempt to make a better world."

--Clay Reynolds, series judge.
__________________________________________________________________

More than two decades ago, my wife and I fell in love with the countries that we in the West label the Middle East.  Even as I write that, I’m reminded that the term “Middle East” is West-centric and conveys an attitude.  Middle compared to what?  “Far East?”  Far from where?  From Europe and America?  Are these the basis for all geographic and cultural definitions?  Point of view matters, although that's often forgotten as we trot out the familiar phrases and words.

 After that first visit to Syria and Jordan, we were hooked on this part of the world.  The austere beauty of those ancient countries captivated us, but it was the people who especially charmed us.  School girls grinning under their black scarves in Iran.  Kurd newlyweds spontaneously inviting us to their celebration in Eastern Turkey.   A young Lebanese woman passionately sharing her experiences during the recent war.  Their warmth and welcoming spirit quickly engaged us and the richness and complexity of their cultures delighted us.  

 As we explored more and learned more, we came to appreciate more deeply the traditions passed down over thousands of years.  We saw that people today valued and carried on the old ways, whether it was the Bedouins herding their sheep across the dry hills, backstreet craftsmen hammering out silver and gold, bakers producing countless loaves of flatbread in scorching brick ovens, or people opening up their homes and offering tables of delectable mezze as their ancestors had from ancient times.   

 We also saw the economic realities with which the people of these countries were struggling, the difficulty young men were having finding jobs so they could marry and have families. This was not just a picturesque ancient land, but a land trying to cope with the unforgiving realities of the modern world—a land looking for solutions that would give its people dignity and hope.  These problems wore a variety of faces, but persisted from Iran to Palestine, Morocco to Turkey, Egypt to Syria and Lebanon.  The consequences also might seem superficially varied, but maybe weren’t so different, after all.  People everywhere grab at whatever offers them hope for the future.