Synopses & Reviews
An astonishingly inventive, wonderfully exuberant novel that takes us from the shimmering dunes of ancient Egypt to the war-torn streets of twenty-first-century Lebanon.
In 2003, Osama al-Kharrat returns to Beirut after many years in America to stand vigil at his father's deathbed. The city is a shell of the Beirut Osama remembers, but he and his friends and family take solace in the things that have always sustained them: gossip, laughter, and, above all, stories.
Osama's grandfather was a hakawati, or storyteller, and his bewitching stories of his arrival in Lebanon, an orphan of the Turkish wars, and of how he earned the name al-Kharrat, the fibster are interwoven with classic tales of the Middle East, stunningly reimagined. Here are Abraham and Isaac; Ishmael, father of the Arab tribes; the ancient, fabled Fatima; and Baybars, the slave prince who vanquished the Crusaders. Here, too, are contemporary Lebanese whose stories tell a larger, heartbreaking tale of seemingly endless war and of survival.
Like a true hakawati, Rabih Alameddine has given us an Arabian Nights for this century a funny, captivating novel that enchants and dazzles from its very first lines: "Listen. Let me take you on a journey beyond imagining. Let me tell you a story."
Review
"Opulent and picaresque...[A] grand saga....Alameddine, himself a brilliant hakawati, exuberantly reclaims and celebrates the art of wisdom of the war-torn Middle East in this stupendous, ameliorating, many-chambered palace of a novel." Booklist (Starred Review)
Review
"[A] one-of-a-kind novel....No one interested in boundary-defying fiction will want to miss Alameddine's high-wire act. A dizzying, prodigal display of storytelling overabundance." Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)
Review
"[A] tour de force that interweaves at least five separate narratives into an exquisite tapestry....This magical novel is epic in proportion and will enchant readers everywhere. Recommended." Library Journal (Starred Review)
Review
"Alameddine should be commended for the chances he takes, and he certainly has prodigious skills that should not be discounted. But The Hakawati could have used some editorial tightening." The San Francisco Chronicle
Review
"[A] wildly imaginative patchwork of tales....Though reading such a chaotic book proves exhausting blame the author's desultory technique and dizzying array of characters several stories both charm and amuse." Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Review
"This book covers ambitious terrain, and the author succeeds in doing what he has proposed. In the process, Alameddine proves that he's the hakawati for our times." Rocky Mountain News
Synopsis
Alameddine's astonishingly inventive, wonderfully exuberant novel takes readers from the shimmering dunes of ancient Egypt to the war-torn streets of 21-century Lebanon. The Hakawati is a modern Arabian Nights a funny, captivating novel that enchants and dazzles.
About the Author
Rabih Alameddine is the author of Koolaids, The Perv, and I, the Divine. He divides his time between San Francisco and Beirut.