Epic novel by Lebanese writer Elias Khoury, widely regarded as one of the greatest Arabic novels of the twentieth century. Narrated by a Palestinian doctor tending to a comatose fighter in a Beirut refugee camp, the novel tells the interwoven stories of Palestinian refugees since 1948. Drawing on testimonies from Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, Khoury creates a vast collective memory of the Nakba, the refugee camps, the Lebanese civil war, and Palestinian resistance. A landmark literary text widely taught in world literature and Arabic literature courses, recommended for anyone studying the Palestinian refugee experience, Lebanese civil war, and the epic literary tradition in the context of national dispossession. Translated from its original Arabic by Humphrey Davies.
