Rabih Alameddine

Following the critical and commercial success of An Unnecessary Woman, Alameddine delivers a spectacular portrait of a man and an era of profound political and social upheaval.

"Daring, dazzling . . . a tough, funny, heart-breaking book."--Seattle Times"[A] refreshing statement of honesty and endurance ...funny, brave full of heart and willing to say things about war and disease, sexual and cultural politics that have rarely been said so boldly or directly before."--The Sunday OregonianWhen National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle finalist Rabih Alameddine's dazzling literary debut Koolaids first published it garnered exuberant praise from Amy Tan, Rick Wallach, and Sarah Schulman, among others. Detailing the impact of the AIDS epidemic and the Lebanese civil war in Beirut on a circle of friends and family during the eighties and nineties, Koolaids mines the chaos of contemporary experience, telling the stories of characters who can no longer love or think except in fragments. Clips, quips, vignettes and hallucinations, tragic news reports and hilarious short plays, conversations with both the quick and the dead, all shine their combined lights to reveal the way we experience life today in this ambitious debut from bestselling and acclaimed author Rabih Alameddine. "Rabih Alameddine is one rare writer who not only breaks our hearts but gives every broken piece a new life."--Yiyun Li "Rabih Alameddine is one our most daring writers--daring not in the cheap sense of lurid or racy, but as a surgeon, a philosopher, an explorer, or a dancer."--Michael Chabon

Rabih Alameddine follows his international bestseller The Hakawati with an enchanting story of the life of a book-loving, obsessive, seventy-two-year-old, blue-haired 'unnecessary woman', living in Beirut. This is a novel to savour.

Winner of the California Book Award Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist for the National Book Award "Beautiful and absorbing."--New York TimesAn Unnecessary Woman is a breathtaking portrait of one reclusive woman's late-life crisis, which garnered a wave of rave reviews and love letters to Alameddine's cranky yet charming septuagenarian protagonist, Aaliya, a character you "can't help but love" (NPR). Aaliya's insightful musings on literature, philosophy, and art are invaded by memories of the Lebanese Civil War and her volatile past. As she tries to overcome her aging body and spontaneous emotional upwellings, Aaliya is faced with an unthinkable disaster that threatens to shatter the little life she has left. Here, the gifted Rabih Alameddine has given us a nuanced rendering of one woman's life in the Middle East and an enduring ode to literature and its power to define who we are. "A paean to the transformative power of reading, to the intellectual asylum from one's circumstances found in the life of the mind."--LA Review of Books"[The novel] throbs with energy...[Aaliya's] inventive way with words gives unfailing pleasure, no matter how dark the events she describes, how painful the emotions she reveals."--Washington Post

I en gammel leilighet i Beirut bor 72 år gamle Aaliya. Hun har blått hår og en bemerkelsesverdig historie å fortelle. Mens bombene falt i bygatene har Aaliya dyrket sin store lidenskap: bøker. Sine beste år har hun viet til å lese litteratur og oversette den. Hun har et mislykket ekteskap bak seg, og få venner, men har en særegen sans for humor og en rifle som trofast ledsager. Med stor innlevelse og sjarm tar Aaliya oss med på en reise gjennom livet sitt, belyst gjennom bøkene som har gjort sterkest inntrykk på henne, og forfattere som Bolaño, Sebald, García Márquez, Calvino, Nabokov og Dickens. Aaliyas historie er både en personlig fortelling, en familiehistorie og et innblikk i Beiruts og Libanons historie. Samtidig gir romanen er gripende bilde av hvordan det er å falle utenfor et samfunn som er sterkt basert på tradisjonelle verdier. Les mer her.

I 2003 returnerer Osama al-Kharrat til Beirut etter mange år i USA, for å våke over sin far som ligger for døden. Ettersom familien samles, begynner historiene å folde seg ut: Osamas bestefar var en hakawati, eller historieforteller, og hans trollbindende historier blir vevd sammen med klassiske fortellinger fra Midt-Østen. Her er Abraham og Isak, Ishmael; alle arabiske stammers far, den vakre Fatima, Baybars; slaveprinsen som beseiret korsfarerne; og et vertskap for ertevorne små djevler. Osama tar oss også med inn i dagens libanesiske kvinner og menns liv, gjennom historier som gir oss en større, hjerteskjærende innsikt i det som kan virke som endeløse kriger, identitetskonflikter og overlevelse. Med Hakawati – historiefortelleren gir Rabih Alameddine oss en gripende, spennende og sterk familiekrønike og vår tids Tusen og en natt. Les mer om boken her." EN FORTRYLLENDE BOK" Washington Post"PRAKTFULL" New York Times"BLENDENDE GOD" Financial Times"EN TRIUMF" Aleksandar Hemon"DET ER VANSKELIG Å FORESTILLE SEG ET MENNESKE SOM IKKE VIL LA SEG RIVE MED." Jonathan Safran Foer"VIL TROLLBINDE LESERE OVER HELE VERDEN." The Library Journal

En hakawati er en historieforteller. Osamas bestefar var en av de beste, og han var viden kjent for sine fortellinger om Libanon, den tyrkiske krigen og hvordan han fikk tilnavnet al-Kharrat, skrønemakeren. Nå er Osama vendt tilbake til Beirut fra USA. Hans far ligger for døden. Familien samles rundt sykesengen og gjenoppdager det som har betydd mye for dem; sladder, latter og - nettopp - fortellingene. Også det libanesiske folket og deres kamp for overlevelse skildres med stor innlevelse. Rabih Alameddine viser at han er en ekte hakawati og veksler mellom samtidfortelling, fabler og gamle legender. Boken er på en og samme tid en gripende og sterk familiekrønike og vår tids Tusen og en natt. Les mer om boken her.

In 2003, Osama al-Kharrat returns to Beirut after many years in America to stand vigil at his father's deathbed. As the family gathers, stories begin to unfold: Osama's grandfather was a hakawati, or storyteller, and his bewitching tales are interwoven with classic stories of the Middle East. Here are Abraham and Isaac; Ishmael, father of the Arab tribes; the beautiful Fatima; Baybars, the slave prince who vanquished the Crusaders; and a host of mischievous imps. Through Osama, we also enter the world of the contemporary Lebanese men and women whose stories tell a larger, heartbreaking tale of seemingly endless war, conflicted identity, and survival. With The Hakawati, Rabih Alameddine has given us an Arabian Nights for this century.

"Alameddine's new novel unfolds like a secret...creating a tale...humorous and heartbreaking and always real" (Los Angeles Times). "[W]ith each new approach, [Sarah] sheds another layer of her pretension, revealing another truth about her humanity" (San Francisco Weekly). Raised in a hybrid family shaped by divorce and remarriage, and by Beirut in wartime, Sarah finds a fragile peace in self-imposed exile in the United States. Her extraordinary dignity is supported by a best friend, a grown-up son, occasional sensual pleasures, and her determination to tell her own story. "Like her narrative, [Sarah's] life is broken and fragmented. [But] the bright, strange, often startling pieces...are moving and memorable" (Boston Globe). Reading group guide included.

'Rabih Alameddine is one rare writer who not only breaks our hearts but gives every broken piece a new life' Yiyun Li'Rabih Alameddine is one our most daring writers - daring not in the cheap sense of lurid or racy, but as a surgeon, a philosopher, an explorer, or a dancer' Michael ChabonDetailing the impact of the AIDS epidemic and the Lebanese civil war in Beirut on a circle of friends and family during the eighties and nineties, Koolaids mines the chaos of contemporary experience, telling the stories of characters who can no longer love or think except in fragments. Clips, quips, vignettes and hallucinations, tragic news reports and hilarious short plays, conversations with both the quick and the dead, all shine their combined lights to reveal the way we experience life today in this ambitious debut from bestselling and acclaimed author Rabih Alameddine.'Daring, dazzling . . . a tough, funny, heart-breaking book' Seattle Times