The King of Jordan is turning 60! How better to celebrate the occasion than with his favourite
pastime-fencing-and with his favourite sparring partner Gabriel Hamdan who must be enticed
back from America where he lives with his wife and his daughter Amani. Amani a divorced poet
jumps at the chance to accompany her father to his homeland for the King's birthday. Her
father's past is a mystery to her-even more so since she found a poem on blue airmail paper
slipped into one of his old Arabic books written by his mother a Palestinian refugee who
arrived in Jordan during World War I. Her words hint at a long-kept family secret carefully
guarded by Uncle Hafez an advisor to the King who has quite personal reasons for inviting his
brother to the birthday party. In a sibling rivalry that carries ancient echoes the Hamdan
brothers must face a reckoning with themselves and with each other-one that almost costs Amani
her life. With sharp insight into modern politics and family dynamics taboos around mental
illness and our inescapable relationship to the past Fencing with the King asks how we contend
with inheritance: familial and cultural hidden and openly contested. Shot through with warmth
and vitality intelligence and spirit it is absorbing and satisfying on every level a wise
and rare literary treat.
