Product Description

I didn't fight, my dear man, for land or for history. I fought for the woman I loved. In a makeshift hospital in a refugee camp on the outskirts of Beirut, Yunis, an aging Palestinian freedom fighter, lies in a coma. His spiritual son, Dr. Khaleel - who has no real medical qualifications - nurses the older man, refusing to admit that his hero may never regain consciousness. In an attempt to revive his patient, Khaleel, like a modern-day Sheherazade, begins telling Yunis the stories of their people's exile in Lebanon: their flight from Galilee in 1948; the violence of the 1950s; the massacre at the Shatila camp in 1982. He evokes deserted peasant villages, the suffering caused by the Lebanese civil war and the refugees' hopes to return home with a subtle mixture of anger and compassion. Khaleel also narrates Yunis' own extraordinary life: his childhood in Palestine and his commitment as a member of the fedayeen; perpetually on the run, fighting and hiding in caves. Interweaving many true-life tales collected throughout Lebanon and its refugee camps over the course of seven years, Elias Khoury has created a monumental and spellbinding saga, putting human faces to a political tragedy which remains at the forefront of the news even today.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #59362 in Books
• Published on: 2006-10-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 512 pages

From the Publisher
From many true-life tales collected throughout Lebanon and its refugee camps over the course of seven years, Elias Khoury has created a monumental and spellbinding saga, putting human faces to a political tragedy at the forefront of the news even today.

About the Author
Elias Khoury was born in Lebanon in 1948. Editor in Chief of the cultural pages of the daily newspaper Al-Nahar and professor of Arabic literature at New York University, he is the author of eleven novels. In 2000 he was awarded the Prize of Palestine for Gate of the Sun. Elias Khoury is regarded as one of the best Arabic writers of his generation.

Customer Reviews

If I could give it more stars, I would
When you're in the presence of literary greatness, you know it. This is one of the finest novels written in the 20th Century. It is THE finest novel ever written about Palestine and the creation of Israel (though, since it is fair-minded and devoid of bigotry and justification of what cannot be justified, that is not hard). I sometimes had to put it down because the accumulation of pain is so hard to take, but it is not a book one could ever walk away from. Anyone who wonders how we in the West came to be surrounded on all sides by terrorist threats should read this book -- and should then ask themselves: Faced with that history; faced with that oppression; faced with those lies; faced with that duplicity; faced with that level of provocation -- would would YOU do?

Indepth Insight into the lives of aDispersed Palestinians
The author smartly entwines all the true life stories he has come across in his lifetime into characters in his book. One of the main things I love is the way the author starts at the end, and takes you back to the beginning, providing snippets of peoples distressed lives and then taking you back to how they have become that way.

For a true insight into the aftermath of the establishment of Israel and the lives of the dispersed Palestinians across the Arab nations (in particular Lebanon) then this is the book to read. The reference to Palestinians becoming the "Video Nation" is well put, attributing a nation living their daily lives based on the memory of what was once their heritage...

The book received a great review in the Guardian back in October 2005 which inspired me to buy it. Can't believe I'm the first to review it on Amazon though!

Note: Warning for the average modest reader! This book has got a great deal of sexual content - too much for my liking! Hence the three stars.

Epic and personal
A powerful insight into the middle east, which is also a rich work of literature. By being both epic and personal, you are drawn into a terrible tragedy for a people and for people. A great hero lies in a coma and his story is told by his nurse, who is dedicated but has his own story to tell. It's a mixture of myth and ordinariness and is never simple.