Books from Lebanon

The Arsonists’ City follows the Nasr family, whose members are scattered across Beirut and the United States but remain connected by their shared history and their ancestral home in Lebanon. When Idris decides to sell the Beirut house following his father’s death, his wife, Mazna, and their three adult children return to prevent the sale. Their reunion brings buried secrets, old romantic entanglements, and unresolved resentments to the surface. Through shifting timelines, Alyan reveals how the family came together and how migration, political conflict, and personal choices gradually shaped their relationships. Each family member has developed a different understanding of home, belonging, and responsibility, creating tensions that threaten to pull them apart. Against the backdrop of Lebanon’s turbulent history, the novel explores intergenerational trauma, cultural identity, and the complicated bonds that connect people to their families and places of origin.

True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother) follows Raja, a gay Lebanese man in his late sixties who lives in Beirut and spends his days writing letters to a mysterious correspondent he calls the “Dear Comrade.” Through these letters, Raja recounts his unconventional life, his complicated relationship with his formidable mother, and the experiences that have shaped his identity. His story moves between personal memories and Lebanon’s turbulent political and cultural history, touching on sexuality, religion, war, and the challenges of growing older in a society marked by contradiction. With characteristic wit, irreverence, and tenderness, Rabih Alameddine explores the boundaries between truth and storytelling, revealing how people reinvent their pasts to make sense of their lives. Beneath its humour lies a moving portrait of family bonds, loneliness, and the search for acceptance. The novel celebrates the freedom to live outside conventional expectations while acknowledging the enduring power of love, memory, and belonging.