Description
Origins, by the world-renowned writer Amin Maalouf, is a sprawling, hemisphere-spanning intergenerational saga.
Set during the last quarter of the nineteenth century and the first quarter of the twentieth, in the mountains of Lebanon and in Havana, Cuba, Origins recounts the family history of the generation of Maalouf's paternal grandfather, Boutros. Why did Boutros, a poet and educator in Lebanon, travel across the globe to rescue his younger brother, Gebrayel, who had settled in Havana? Maalouf is an energetic and amiable narrator, illuminating the more obscure corners of late Ottoman nationalism, the psychology of Lebanese sectarianism, and the dynamics of family quarrels. He moves with great agility across time and space, and across genres of writing. But he never loses track of his story's central thread: his quest to lift the shadow of legend from his family's past. Origins is at once a gripping family chronicle and a timely consideration of Lebanese culture and politics.Author: Amin Maalouf
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Published: 06/09/2009
Pages: 404
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.25lbs
Size: 8.90h x 5.90w x 1.20d
ISBN13: 9780374531768
ISBN10: 0374531765
BISAC Categories:
- Biography & Autobiography | Personal Memoirs
About the Author
Amin Maalouf was a journalist in Lebanon until the civil war in 1975, when he left for Paris with his family. His work, including The Crusades Through Arab Eyes and the novel Samarkand, has been translated into more than forty languages. He has won the Prix Goncourt for his novel The Rock of Tanios, and the Prince of Asturias Award for Literature.