De Niro's Game

2008 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award

De Niro's Game plunges readers into the timely story of two young men caught in Lebanon's civil war. Bassam and George, best friends in childhood, have grown to adulthood in war-torn Beirut. Now they must choose their futures: to stay in the city and consolidate power through crime, or to go into exile abroad, alienated from the only existence they have known.

Told in a distinctive, captivating voice that fuses vivid cinematic imagery and page-turning plot with the measured strength and beauty of Arabic poetry, De Niro's Game is an explosive portrait of life in a war zone, and a powerful meditation on what comes after.

"This aggressive, prize-winning Canadian import debut recounts the fate of two childhood friends in war-ravaged Beirut. Narrator Bassam dreams of leaving Beirut, where there is 'not enough [money] for cigarettes, a nagging mother, and food,' and escaping to Rome, where even the pigeons 'look happy and well fed.' To fund his escape, he enters into a scheme with his best friend, George, to skim funds from the poker arcade where George works. But George is soon coerced into joining the militia and rises to its top ranks, allowing the friends to indulge in freewheeling lawlessness. Their days of riding the streets of West Beirut 'with guns under our bellies, and stolen gas in our tanks, and no particular place to go' gives way to betrayal and violence more ferocious than either self-styled thug had bargained for. Though Bassam does eventually leave, he finds he cannot entirely escape Beirut; only in Paris, where the story plays out its third and final act, does he discover the extent of his friend's treachery. Hage's energetic prose matches the brutality depicted in the novel without overstating the narrative's tragic arc — an impressive first outing for Hage." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

A thick helping of recognition was recently served to the Beirut-born Rawi Hage for his first novel, "De Niro's Game," winner of the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, the world's richest prize ($153,000) for a work of literary fiction.

"De Niro's Game," which was published in the United States last year, presents a portrait of two childhood friends living in war-torn Beirut... Washington Post Book Review (read the entire Washington Post review) during the early 1980s. Juxtaposing edgy imagery with the repetitive calm of beautiful Arabic poetry, the novel explores the lives of Bassam and George, young men who must choose either to stay in Beirut relying on stealth and violence or live in alienation abroad. Bassam dreams of escaping, and to make money for this he schemes with George to skim proceeds from poker arcades and smuggle bottles of counterfeit whiskey. George, on the other hand, chooses to stay and is forced into military service. He maneuvers his way through the ranks and lives a mad-dog life of sanctioned crime. Hundreds of thousands of bombs fall in this book as the boys maraud and chase women. It's a hallucinatory vision of how war corrupts even friendship. Written in English and calling upon Arabic poetry and French philosophy, "De Niro's Game" forms an intriguing trilingual hybrid that should cement its appeal worldwide.

At the Blue Met literary festival in Montreal last month, Hage said that his novel is "an uncompromising look at a place in conflict, from the inside, presented in a true way, with artistic merit." Immediately, he was concerned that this statement smacks too much of hubris, but he noted that only the artists talk about this war. No monuments were raised to commemorate it. "Too contentious," Hage said. "There is no consensus between Christians and Muslims on what happened. No truth commission. No one mentions it. People wanted to forget."

The feel of the novel is frenzied, with great movement and cinematic cuts. Passages of reflection, contemplation and quiet suddenly break to violence. This, explained Hage, is what the war was like for him. "You can't go out because you don't know where the bombs will fall," he said. "There's a madness to it. As a kid you're an uncomprehending observer, filled with a haziness, a mixture of fear and adrenaline, a chemical reaction." Although the movement and shards are exhilarating, at times this technique becomes distracting, incomprehensible, in ways similar to passages in Michael Ondaatje's "The English Patient."

Russian roulette, which featured prominently in the movie "The Deer Hunter" (1978) starring Robert De Niro, strongly affected young men in Beirut at the time, Hage explained. A macho attitude mixed with drugs made this deadly practice popular with those in the militia, who had lots of guns to play with. Explaining its prevalence, Hage said the game was "an extension of a life of violence that starts out directed at the other and then turns inward, as self-loathing."

Hage was born in East Beirut in 1964, taught mostly in French by Catholics but also schooled in Arabic grammar, literature and poetry. In 1975 falling bombs and the loss of family members shattered his middle-class existence in a prosperous country. But despite the war, he grew up surrounded by books and smoky rooms full of his father's quasi-intellectual friends: a salon with lots of storytelling in it and talk of poems, history, literature and language.

Fascinated by the West, at 18 he went to New York, joining his older brother, who was studying there. In many ways, Hage said, the city was similar to Beirut, an intense, noisy, crowded place. With limited English and his family thousands of miles away, he struggled emotionally, having to live daily with news of bombs dropping at home. Never comfortable in New York, he applied for Canadian residency and moved to Montreal in the early 1990s.

"De Niro's Game" is a work of literature, but due to its subject matter it also contributes to history and memory. Hage stays away from conclusions, preferring to present ambiguous, complex characters as representatives of humanity's dark side, which he believes we should all face and talk about. If anything, the book champions secularism and highlights the evil of which organized religion, regardless of brand name, is capable. Attacking God so directly makes the book a statement against all religion, Hage says, against the imposition of narrow standards of morality on society, not just in the Middle East, but around the world.

Reviewed by Nigel Beale, who is host of 'The Biblio File' radio program and can be reached at www.nigelbeale.com, Washington Post Book World (Copyright 2006 Washington Post Book World Service/Washington Post Writers Group)
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"[A] stunning first novel yielding a totally fresh perspective on war-torn Beirut....Both terse and lyrical, Hage's narrative is a wonder, alternately referencing modern American action heroes and ancient Arabic imagery. The blend of the two is as startling as it is beautiful." Booklist (Starred Review)

"[T]he language, restless, enervated, slides from blunt and colorless to the candenced, figuring [the protagonist's] world's endless cycle of revolution and despair....Remarkable." Los Angeles Times

"[A] shattering vision....Hage...brings a fierce poetic originality to a tragically familiar story...Hollywood noir meets opium dreams in a blasted landscape of war-wasted young lives." The Boston Globe

"Rawi Hage's debut novel burns with a white-hot brilliance....With rhythms and imagery reminiscent of epic Arabic poetry, Hage lays bare the chaos that war unleashes in the souls of those who must live in its maelstrom." The Charlotte Observer

"[A] striking debut....Straddling the line between literary and genre fiction, Hage's exhilarating prose depicts war-torn Lebanon during the 1980s and his young protagonists' dark and dreamy obsession with American movies..." The San Francisco Chronicle

"Hage's style is hallucinatory, and as you read and reread his gorgeous, grandiose, melancholy catalogs of destruction, you'll find it hard not to think of the fevered dream of Howl." The Village Voice

In this explosive, captivating portrait of life in a war zone, two young men must choose their futures: to stay in the war-torn Beirut and consolidate power through crime, or to go into exile abroad, alienated from the only existence they have known.

Rawi Hage was born in Beirut and lived through nine years of the Lebanese civil war. In 1992 he moved to New York City, working there for several months before emigrating to Canada, where he has lived ever since. He is a writer, a visual artist, and a curator. His writings have appeared in Fuse, Mizna, Jouvert, The Toronto Review, Montreal Serai, and Al-Jadid. His visual works have been shown in galleries and museums around the world. He resides in Montreal.