A book that hits you hard on the first page and keeps your heart pounding right to the end. Rawi Hage is in a rare class of writers whose prose you must stop to reread several times to admire the construction and feel the words again. According to my gauge, Annie Proulx, Jane Austen, and Winston Churchill and now Hage are in that class.
Hage tells the story of Bassam, a young man trying to get out of Lebanon during the Civil War. I am told by someone who was in Beirut through the war, that it is an accurate depiction of life in East Beirut during those years. Bassam is a man with the morals of the times, doing what has to be done. I judged but also understood.
A must read.
-
No comments:
Post a Comment