![]() ![]() What else can one make of a book that jumps from the bedside of the narrator’s dying father to intricate tales of Baybars and Fatima, legendary figures from the early days of the Arab world? ![]() Hmmm.Ĭlearly, the best approach to this collection of complexities is to take it as a fabulous amusement. Alameddine paints when he’s not writing fiction al-Kharrat is in line to inherit the family’s Toyota dealership, but would rather noodle on the guitar. Both were born in Lebanon and educated in the United States, and they share an artistic temperament. (Note, though, that the on-line dictionaries I’ve consulted don’t seem to recognize the Arabic term.)Ĭompounding our confusion is that al-Kharrat seems to bear a marked resemblance to his creator. That’s “Osama the Liar”, according to Alameddine. How much of it we should take for gospel is moot, for although the book includes as astute an analysis of Lebanon and its troubles as you’ll find, it’s also narrated by a young man named Osama al-Kharrat. Rabih Alameddine is a modern-day Scheherazade, spinning out 1,001 nights’ worth of entertainment in this remarkable book, which is part fable, part memoir, and part family history.Īlameddine calls The Hakawati “a story”, which in itself blurs the line between fact and fiction. ![]() Doubleday Canada, 513 pp, $32.95, hardcover ![]()
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