The Hakawati

A HAKAWATI is a storyteller, and Osama al-Kharrat’s grandfather was one of the best.

Osama himself left Lebanon at 16 to escape the civil war.

When he returns, years later, he finds his father bedridden and his friends and enemies in riotous attendance, each gossiping, reminiscing, making peace and, in the best tradition of their boisterous and imaginative family, telling stories.

From the latest novel by author Rabih Alameddine, comes an exuberant novel that is a triumph of storytelling – an interpretation of the Middle East that is at once mythic, mischievous and painfully real.