Set in 1967, Ladies of the Dance follows the story of Alya, a 28-year-old teacher, and her brother, Omar, who manages the family's hotel, in Beit Nuba, a Palestinian town under Jordanian rule. The novel is a tapestry of scenes and characters - Palestinians, Israelis, British, American - evoking a world of sounds, sights, smells: how it feels to walk down a street in Jerusalem, the mixture of private and political concerns as the tension builds in the days leading up to the Six-Day War. Ladies is infused with an underlying belief in the "universality of our human longings - regardless of...