Books like The Hakawati by Rabih Alameddine
When Osama al‑Kharrat comes home to Beirut after many years in America, he faces his father's final breaths and the emotional weight of a family gathering. As the elder Hakawati—storyteller—shares his bewitching stories, Osama is transported through the Middle Eastern epics of Abraham, Isaac, Ishmael, Fatima, and Baybars, among others. These narratives echo the lives of contemporary Lebanese men and women, whose own stories reveal a heartbreaking tableau of ongoing conflict, conflicted identity, and resilience. In *The Hakawati*, Rabih Alameddine crafts a modern Arabian Nights that bridges past and present, folklore and reality.
First publish date: 2008
Genre: Literary Fiction/Contemporary Literary Fiction
Authors: Rabih Alameddine
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