I read a review of this book in December 1999, more than likely in a British newspaper since I was in Switzerland at the time. I believe that it had been recently published.
The only things I can remember are that it centers around a couple, probably married, who die/are killed in the desert (Africa?), possibly where they first met. The book tells their love story as their bodies lie in a grave (?) in this desert.
Anyway, I didn’t think to write down the title since I was on vacation. It’s been bugging me ever since and I had hoped that the Teeming Millions might be able to help me out.
Could it be The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles? it ws published ten or twelve years ago, but a new edition was released a few years ago when it was made into a movie 9which the author apparently hated).
Here’s a blurb from the publisher:
After ten years of marriage, Kit and Port Moresby have drifted apart and are sexually estranged. Avoiding the chaos of Europe in the aftermath of the Second World War, they travel to the remote North African desert. Port hopes the journey will reunite them, but although they share similar emotions, they are divided by their conflicting outlooks on life. Kit fears the desert while Port is drawn to its beauty and remoteness. Oblivious to its dangers, he falls ill and they discover a hostile, violent world that threatens to destroy them both.