Bøker av Jabbour Douaihy

Poison in the Air, Jabbour Douaihy's final novel, chronicles the decades of social, political, and economic turmoil leading up to and including the recent collapse of his beloved Lebanon after the horrific explosion that occurred at the Port of Beirut in 2020. Douaihy brings a multitude of bottled-up toxicity to the surface, as though he is writing his last letter to the world, or a suicide note for Lebanon, as he paints a picture of a society marching down a path to self-destruction.

The story of a Lebanese murder case set against the backdrop of sectarian animosity from an award-winning authorThe story of a Lebanese murder case set against the backdrop of sectarian animosity Shortlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction In mysterious circumstances, the body of Zakaria Mubarak is found in an orchard on the outskirts of his village of Tel Safra in northern Lebanon. He had just returned from a long exile in Europe, the US, and Africa, carrying with him a painting by Marc Chagall, the "Blue Violinist," a gift from his girlfriend in Paris. Suspicion falls on the cousins, who may have killed him to get their hands on a treasure supposedly buried underneath the house built by their grandmother when she returned from America.As investigator Abu Khalid wrestles with conflicting evidence surrounding Zakaria's death, he is drawn into a picture of the victim's life, one that recalls fables of gold, sibling strife, the love of French women, false promises of revolution, and the corruption and sectarian enmities that have plagued their homeland.A riveting meditation on the riddle of a crime, Paula Haydar's eloquent translation pays fitting homage to a compassionate, guiding light of Lebanese fiction.

"A powerful novel of a young man living between Muslim and Christian worlds amid the Lebanese Civil War."--

A love letter to a city of his childhood, Jabbour Douaihy's The American Quarter is set in a small neighborhood in Tripoli, the ancient port on the northern coast of Lebanon. Unfolding at the height of the US-led invasion of Iraq, it revolves around the radicalization of an ordinary youth named Ismail. But Ismail's story is part of a larger portrait of those nearest to him: the young disabled brother he looks out for; his father Bilal, a massacre survivor; Intisar, his spirited, indulgent mother, a maid like her mother before her in the wealthy, powerful Azzam household; Abdelkarim, the Azzam family's only son, addicted to poetry and opera, and pining for his lost Polish ballerina?all sharply depicted by Douaihy with irony and affection. As well, Ismail's fate is entwined with the disappointments and meager prospects of those around him in the deteriorating American Quarter, and others forced to crisscross the surrounding conflict-scarred lands. Somehow Ismail's reckoning with his assigned mission comes to reflect our own struggles?for redemption, for faith in life in the face of destructive forces that can erase in an instant what is dear to us. A classic tale for our time, in a lucid translation by Paula Haydar, The American Quarter is a compassionate work of great beauty. Paying homage to the persistent presence of a beloved old city and her people, it bolsters us with a gifted writer's long view of the threats to trust and tolerance we now face.