The Hakawati
Rabih Alameddine
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars
3.94
· 16 ratings · 530 pages · Published: 27 Mar 2008
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.”
Tagged as:
- fantasy 4
- historical 3
- historical fiction 3
- magical realism 3
- literary fiction 3
- on the move 3
- lgbtq+ 3
- family 2
- war/big battles 2
- folktales & legends 2
- protagonists of colour 2
- islam 2
- religion 1
- action / adventure 1
- military, war & conflict 1
- spirituality 1
- Add topics
- format - reader age
- audiobook 1
- book 1
- adult fiction 1