num_pages: 223
description: 'I have been thinking about the girl I met last night in the mirror: dark on the marble-ivory white: glossy black hair: deep suspiring eyes in which one's glances sink because they are nervous, curious, turned to sexual curiosity.' The tragic story of the mysterious and fascinating Justine, and those whose lives she touched in pre-war Alexandria, is told by her lover, an impoverished Irish teacher who has sought refuge across the Mediterranean in Greece. It is undoubtedly a love-story, but the real heroine of the book is its setting: Alexandria, the city 'which decrees that its women shall be the voluptuaries not of pleasure but of pain'.
language: English
title: Justine
titlecomplete: Justine (Alexandria Quartet, #1)
characters: Paul Capodistria, Percy Pursewarden, Gaston Pombal, S. Balthazar, L.G. Darley, Clea Montis, Nessim Hosnani, Josh Scobie, Melissa Artemis, Justine Hosnani
genres: Historical Fiction, Historical, Africa, Literary Fiction, Novels, Literature, Egypt, Classics, British Literature, Fiction
ratings_count: 8793
places:  , Egypt, Alexandria
series: Alexandria Quartet
awards: awardedAt: -347126400000
name: Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger
category: Roman
publisher: Faber & Faber