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Faysal Khartash, a winner of the Naguib Mahfouz Prize for Arabic Literature, is a leading Syrian author. He lives in his native Aleppo, has written several novels and works as a schoolteacher while contributing to Syrian newspapers. Max Weiss teaches the history of the modern Middle East at Princeton University. He has translated books by Nihad Sirees, Dunya Mikhail and Samar Yazbek.
Khartash's sparse and harrowing English-language debut offers an account of life in Aleppo during the Syrian Civil War ... Readers will find this fragmented tale of war-torn Aleppo and its displaced intellectuals chilling and insightful. --Publishers Weekly A heartwrenching and shocking work of historical fiction ... the novel follows Jumaa, an unemployed Arabic teacher who struggles to live peacefully in a dangerous city ... A powerful novel that takes a humane view of Syria's devastation. --Foreword Reviews News reports and images have exposed the horrors of the Syrian crisis: millions of refugees, bombing and chemical weapons. But this powerful novel by Faysal Khartash makes the grim reality of survival through the fierce fighting in Aleppo truly comprehensible. --Itamar Rabinovich, co-author of Syrian Requiem: The Civil War and its Aftermath A masterful distillation of one of the great tragedies of the twenty-first century, as stripped of artifice and sentimentality as it is undergirded with insight and empathy. Roundabout of Death is essential reading. --Dan Mayland, author of The Doctor of Aleppo A brilliant, kaleidoscopic and claustrophobic portrayal of the Syrian civil war. Khartash's spare prose eloquently conveys horrors that require no rhetorical elevation. This is a fine book that deserves a wide readership, both on its own merits and because the Syrian disaster is by no means over. --Jonathan Spyer, author of Days of the Fall: A Reporter's Journey in the Syria and Iraq Wars Some books stand as monuments to wars from which they arise. This is one of those books. --Elliot Ackerman, author of Green on Blue and Waiting for Eden A remarkable book, a vivid testimonial to the horrors of the Syrian civil war. --Robert F. Worth, author of A Rage for Order: The Middle East in Turmoil To read a novel, presumably partly autobiographical, written by a Syrian author living in Aleppo amidst the city's destruction is a moving experience ... I feel I've been to Syria and got a glimpse of what it's like to be living there as an ordinary person--and that is an incredible gift. --Five Books Tells the incredible story of how the city of Aleppo has been reduced to piles of rubble and blood-soaked dirt in the wake of a celebrated history, its once proud identity now lost in the shadows. -- Al-Bayan (Dubai) [Faysal Khartash] has always written imaginatively about the character of Aleppo, especially those relegated to the lower level and the margins, the deep trenches, revealing the city's subterranean worlds. He intimately chronicles Aleppo's alleyways and secret corners, which is why most of his novels have faced state censorship. --Al-Akhbar (Beirut)
