From the award-winning author of The Tiller of Waters
Disciples of Passion chronicles the civil war in Lebanon through the troubled and sometimes quasi-hallucinatory mind of a young man who has experienced kidnapping, hostage exchange, and hospital internment. As he recalls his village childhood and recounts his relationship with a woman of a different faith, his fragmented narrative probes the uncertainties of political testimonial and ascriptions of responsibility in wartime.
Marilyn Booth’s fluid translation brings to an English audience one of the Arabic language’s finest contemporary novelists. Hoda Barakat writes from personal experience: her novels focus on the civil war in Lebanon and how it shaped the lives of people marginalized by the conflict. Compelling scenarios of war and its aftermath of suffering and destruction are integrated into subtle psychological portraits with protagonists often propelled into unexpected action. HODA BARAKAT has received critical acclaim in the Arab world and abroad. Three of her books have been translated into French, and she was awarded the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature for her novel The Tiller of Waters and the al-Nagid Award for The Stone of Laughter.
MARILYN BOOTH is associate professor of comparative literature at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is the translator of several Arabic novels, including The Tiller of Waters.
