The Hakawati

Literature & Fiction

Rabih ALAMEDDINE

Literary

Picador

The Storyteller, Or, the Hakawati

Picador USA

The Hakawati - or, The Storyteller - is a sweeping, wildly imaginative feast of a novel, bursting with the myths of the Middle East. At its emotional core is the reunion of a long-standing Beiruti family, whose patriarch is dying and visited on his deathbed by his children and by memories of his ancestors. Rabih Alameddine tells their stories - of crusades and battles; chicanery, betrayal and sex; family rivalry, family disunity and family life - and spins them together with the historical stories of the region, but with a twist. Born in Beirut, living in San Francisco, and writing in English, Alameddine not only spans both Western and Middle-Eastern culture, but does so as one of the most mischevious and inventive writers at work. While the Fatima of legend gives birth to the son of the lord of the Underworld, it is to the accompaniment of a vocal set of imps disguised as parrots. The evil conqueror of the known world is called Arbusto - or 'Bush' in Portuguese. This kind of colour overlays the harsh violence of the real world, whether it be the suffering and disruption of civil war, the loss of a parent, or the difficulties of adolescence and sexual awakening. The Hakawati is a kaleidoscopic tour of the Middle East: of conflict, of religion, of family; and in Alameddine's hands even the most venerable and familiar of tales emerge with outrageous humour, unscripted sex, and a humanity that is uniquely his own.

Pan/Macmillan

In 2003, Osama al-Kharrat returns to Beirut after many years in America to stand vigil at his father's deathbed. As the family gathers, stories begin to unfold: Osama's grandfather was a hakawati, or storyteller, and his bewitching tales are interwoven with classic stories of the Middle East. Here are Abraham and Isaac; Ishmael, father of the Arab tribes; the beautiful Fatima; Baybars, the slave prince who vanquished the Crusaders; and a host of mischievous imps. Through Osama, we also enter the world of the contemporary Lebanese men and women whose stories tell a larger, heartbreaking tale of seemingly endless war, conflicted identity, and survival. With The Hakawati, Rabih Alameddine has given us an Arabian Nights for this century.

I, The Divine - A Novel In First Chapters

Contemporary

Phoenix/Orion

An Unnecessary Woman

Corsair

The Angel of History

"There are many ways to break someone's heart, but Rabih Alameddine is one rare writer who not only breaks our hearts but gives every broken piece a new life." - Yiyun Li Following the critical and commercial success of An Unnecessary Woman, Alameddine delivers a spectacular portrait of a man and an era of profound political and social upheaval. Set over the course of one night in the waiting room of a psych clinic, The Angel of History follows Yemeni-born poet Jacob as he revisits the events of his life, from his maternal upbringing in an Egyptian whorehouse to his adolescence under the aegis of his wealthy father and his life as a gay Arab man in San Francisco at the height of AIDS. Hovered over by the presence of alluring, sassy Satan, who taunts Jacob to remember his painful past, and dour, frigid Death, who urges him to forget and give up on life, Jacob is also attended to by 14 saints. Set in Cairo and Beirut; Sana'a, Stockholm, and San Francisco; Alameddine gives us a charged philosophical portrait of a brilliant mind in crisis. This is a profound, philosophical, and hilariously winning story of the war between memory and oblivion we wrestle with every day of our lives. "Rabih Alameddine is one our most daring writers - daring not in the cheap sense of lurid or racy, but as a surgeon, a philosopher, an explorer, or a dancer." - Michael Chabon

Constable Robinson

THE WRONG END OF THE TELESCOPE

One of the Middle East's most celebrated voices, Rabih Alameddine follows his international bestseller, The Hakawati, with an enchanting story of a book-loving, obsessive, seventy-two-year-old "unnecessary" woman.Aaliya Saleh lives alone in her Beirut apartment, surrounded by stockpiles of books. Godless, fatherless, childless, and divorced, Aaliya is her family's "unnecessary appendage." Every year, she translates a new favorite book into Arabic, then stows it away. The thirty-seven books that Aaliya has translated over her lifetime have never been read—by anyone.In this breathtaking portrait of a reclusive woman's late-life crisis, listeners follow Aaliya's digressive mind as it ricochets across visions of past and present Beirut. Colorful musings on literature, philosophy, and art are invaded by memories of the Lebanese Civil War and Aaliya's own volatile past. As she tries to overcome her aging body and spontaneous emotional upwellings, Aaliya is faced with an unthinkable disaster that threatens to shatter the little life she has left.A love letter to literature and its power to define who we are, the prodigiously gifted Rabih Alameddine has given us a nuanced rendering of one woman's life in the Middle East.

Unnecessary Woman, An

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Angel of History, The

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