The Hakawati - Hardcover

"A wonderful book-poignant, profane.... This novel will keep you transfixed."--"The" "Boston Globe" "Stunning.... If any work of fiction might be powerful enough to transcend the mountain of polemic, historical inquiry, policy analysis and reportage that stands between the Western reader and the Arab soul, it's this wonder of a book."--Lorraine Adams, "The New York Times Book Review" "Alameddine's intoxicating, ambitious, multi-layered new novel is a marvel of storytelling bravado.... Alameddine creates a compelling portrait of the underpinnings of Arab culture-riddled, like every culture, with contradictions.... Wonderfully bittersweet and complex."--"The Seattle Times" "A fantastic tapestry . . . After reading [The Hakawati] I didn't want to return to the mundane world. [Osama al-Kharrat] returns to his native Beirut after long years spent in Los Angeles to visit the bedside of his dying father. That's the brightest thread of this tale. But this is the story of a thousand threads interweaving legends, fables and parable. There are the mythic wars of Arab lore, and the real civil war in Lebanon. . . . A story that ranges from the seven gates of the underworld to a deathbed in Beirut could only be told by a real storyteller, a hakawati-a spellbinder. . . . We meet many, many other characters here: Fatima, who appears to be a goddess, we meet Baybars, the slave king, we meet imps, djinn, witches and horses with magical powers. They're the atmosphere, and the real people feel like mortals walking around in this fairytale atmosphere. . . . In this book, people are often entering the world of legend when the real world is painful. And that is, after all, one of theplaces that the imagination springs from. In other words, when [Osama's] fictive family is suffering the real pains of the Lebanese civil war, the mother in this book will say, tell me a story, distract me, enchant me, and the imagination serves that function too. . . . I really liked that very gentle image, that Osama, even as his father is breathing in, breathing out, breathing in, breathing out, is going to begin a new tale."--Jacki Lyden, senior correspondent, "All Things Considered" "Exhilarating . . . In Alameddine's world there are magic carpets, but they can misbehave in midair. There are imps, but they can end up in an imp stew or be transformed into colorful squawking parrots. And there are Kama-Sutra topping tales of sex and seduction. Alameddine has great fun telling this story, and it's infectious. . . . Both dazzling and dizzying. [The Hakawati] meanders, doubles back, moves back and forward in time, takes off on tangents and then eats its own tail. There are stories within stories within stories. . . . It's an audacious all-you-can-eat buffet . . . Alameddine's talent is that each of these tales is as picaresque as the next, each feels just as real, just as contemporary. In some ways the stories leak into each other, full of the same ingredients of love, family, betrayal and sex. . . . Alameddine is a wonderful raconteur and teller of tales, as effortless in conjuring up a war in ancient times as a garden party in Los Angeles. He can be serious and poignant, [and he] also refuses to be awed by the sweep of history--at one point producing a prophet who announces he's not going to eat any more broccoli."--Sandip Roy, "San Jose Mercury News" "A riot ofstories concerning the rise of the eccentric al-Kharrat family. Osama [al-Kharrat]'s waggish grandfather was a hakawati, or storyteller, and his classic tales of princes, genies, and wise-cracking seductresses are worthy of Scheherazade. Rabih Alameddine has a deft, winsome touch."--Karen Karbo, "Entertainment Weekly" "Bravely ambitious . . . This is the stuff of the day-to-day becoming extraordinary, the work of the hakawati, the storyteller: merging the mundane and the fabulous. The Hakawati is made up of many stories, and like Scheherazade's famous nights, it is intended to keep death at bay, while in serpentine fashion resurrecting the world in words with each day's dawn. At the center of the novel is the family saga of Osama al-Kharrat, who after 26 years in Los Angeles has returned to his roots in Lebanon to stand vigil at his father's deathbed . . . Family tales are shared, and passionate descriptions bring to full realization characters such as Osama's sophisticated and headstrong mother or his humorous and warmly affectionate Uncle Jihad. . . . A skillfully wrought, emotional story . . . Alameddine should be commended for the chances he takes, and [his] prodigious skills . . . He deserves credit for telling a story the West should pay attention to, and evoking the diversity of the Arab world (Christian, Muslim, Jew and even Druze, they are all here) that is often taken for granted in our ever narrowing perspective of righteousness."--David Hellman, "San Francisco Chronicle" "Captivating . . . A wildly imaginative patchwork of tales improbably threading together Greek mythology, biblical parables, Arab-Islamic lore, and even modern Lebanese politics [that] charmand amuse. . . . Most of these tales originate with narrator Osama's late paternal grandfather, whose fascinating childhood and multiple identities forged a masterful hakawati, the Levantine Arabic word for 'storyteller.' While Osama's rather stodgy father had no time for the old man's colorful, moving and grotesque yarns, Osama imbibed them with gusto. As a result, he has become a walking treasure-trove of fables and historical legends. . . . Somewhere between bitter reality and escapist fantasy, the ever-humorous author provides the stoically optimistic view of the sputtering Lebanese experiment: 'You take different groups, put them on top of each other, simmer for a thousand years, keep adding more and more strange tribes, simmer for another few thousand years, salt and pepper with religion, and what you get is a delightful mess of a stew that still tastes delectable and exotic, no matter how many times you partake of it.'" --Rayyan Al-Shawaf, "Milwaukee Journal Sentinel" "Alameddine is an embellisher extraordinaire. His new novel, The Hakawati, is a big book, both literally (513 pages) and figuratively, and it's attracting critical attention for its scope and ingenuity. In the novel, scores of stories are woven through the life of a Lebanese family, the al-Kharrats. It is told mostly through the eyes of Osama, the young son. Osama is a good listener, and everyone likes to tell him stories. Some of them are true-or true enough. Some are folk tales. Some are about daily life in Beirut during the Lebanese civil war. Some are about Baybars, a 13th-century warrior and sultan of Egypt and Syria. And some come directly from Mr. Alameddine's Technicolor imagination."--Cynthia Crossen, "The Wall Street Journal" "Four stars. Astonishingly inventive . . . Stunningly retold stories [that] reintroduce readers to familiar characters like Abraham, Isaac, Ishmael and the fabled Fatima [and] also the stories of contemporary Lebanese who have suffered the torments of war for decades and how they carry on with their daily lives in spite of all that insanity. . . . Alameddine's enchanting language [has] a fascinating, lyrical quality . . . He juggles his many narratives effortlessly, enhancing each with small details from the world they inhabit--caring for pigeons on a rooftop, the way a cold beer tastes after a desert trek. The real hakawati, here, is Alameddine." --Beth Dugan, "Time Out Chicago" "Be thankful for Rabih Alameddine's new novel, The Hakawati. In one of the most delightful books of the year, Alameddine relates many of the stories that unite the people living in the Middle East. The narrator's family are Druze living in Lebanon, but the stories we hear come from Cairo, Damascus and Turkey as well as from the Bible and the Quran. Modern readers have nothing to fear from Alameddine as the novel is contemporary as well as ancient. David Bowie and Santa Claus can be found in these stories as well as Abraham, Orpheus, jinnis, sultans, crusaders, magic carpets, virgins, houris and, of course, evil viziers. The story of why Aladdin is Chinese is superb. "The Hakawati" is a book to be read and read again."--Chris Watson, "Santa Cruz Sentinel" "Mesmerizing . . . Alameddine's book is sui generis . . . like a magic carpet transporting you to a place where fables and history, weddings and funerals, murder and sacrifice, people so real you can almost touch them, and jinnis and witches and beys and imps and prophets who take the form of parrots coexist . . . More than any book in recent memory, The Hakawati, is--at its very big heart--all about the importance of telling stories . . . Funny and heartbreaking, with an ending that turns the novel on its head, transforming the central character and giving new provenance to every detail. . . . Pure genius." --Elizabeth Dewberry, "Paste Magazine" "If you like "The Arabian Nights," check out The Hakawati. . . . Fables, both old and new, reinterpreted by Alameddine, weave throughout a modern-day story: Lebanese narrator Osama al-Kharrat's arrival in Beirut from Los Angeles to visit his ailing father, himself the son of a hakawati, or storyteller. In the end, the tales create an intricate tapestry that displays the complexities of a family and a culture."--Don George, "National Geographic Traveler" "In this entertaining, kaleidoscopic novel, a young Lebanese-American returns to Beirut to visit his dying father. Taking a cue from "The Arabian Nights," Alameddine intertwines this story with myriad others, drawing on the history and legends of the Middle East, from Abraham and Fatima to the Crusades."--"Details" "Dazzling . . . weaves together spellbinding reimaginings of two of the Arab world's most bewitching tales--that of Fatima and Baybars, the famous slave king, and of Osama al-Kharrat,

Irreverent, exhilarating, heartbreaking, and enchanting us from the very first line - 'Listen. Let me take you on a journey beyond imagining. Let me tell you a story' - this extraordinary book is an Arabian Nights for our time. Osama al-Kharrat left Lebanon at sixteen to escape the civil war. He returns after some years, much changed, to find his father bedridden and his family, friends and enemies in attendance, reminiscing, gossiping, making peace, and above all telling stories. 'Hakawati' means 'storyteller', and Osama's grandfather was one of the best. From Uncle Jihad to the family doctor `Tin Can', each member of Osama's circle is joined in a vigil that crosses continents, spans centuries, celebrates love, recounts war, and creates an epic picture of the region: one that is at once mythic, mischievous, and painfully real. 'A glorious, gorgeous masterpiece of pure storytelling' Amy Tan `The Hakawati is astonishing. There is a delightful cheekiness in telling so many tales all at the same time. It is pure genius' Aleksandar Hemon 'Here it comes, the book of the year, on its own magic carpet of endless stories. Both a snapshot of our current crisis, and a story for the ages' Andrew Sean Greer