Roundabout of Death
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- USD 9.99
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- USD 9.99
Publisher Description
“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
Set in Aleppo in 2012, when everyday life was metronomically punctuated by steady bombing, Roundabout of Death offers powerful witness to the violence that obliterated the ancient city's rich layers of history, its neighborhoods, and its medieval and Ottoman architectural landmarks. The novel is told from the perspective of an ordinary man, a schoolteacher of Arabic for whom even daily errands become a life-threatening task. He experiences firsthand the wide-scale destruction wrought upon the monumental Syrian metropolis as it became the stage for a vicious struggle between warring powers. Death hovers ever closer while the teacher roams Aleppo’s streets and byways, minutely observing the perils of urban life in an uncanny twist on Baudelaire's flâneur. Navigating roadblocks and dodging sniper bullets on visits to his mother and sister in the rebel-held eastern sector of the city, the teacher clings to normality with a daily ritual of coffee with friends, where conversation is casually permeated by news of the latest blasts and demise. The novel, a literary edifice erected as an unflinching response to the painful erasure of the physical remnants of a once great city, speaks eloquently of the fragmentation of human existence, the oppressive rule of ISIS militants in nearby Raqqa, the calamities of war and its grinding emotional toll.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Khartash's sparse and harrowing English-language debut offers an account of life in Aleppo during the Syrian Civil War. Arabic teacher Jumaa Abd al-Jaleel looks back on the disruptions to daily life in the decimated city as the fighting broke out in 2012: the sniper and bomb attacks, his school turned into a shelter, and afternoons spent in a café with other underemployed men, a safe haven for conversation away from soldiers. When he cannot reach his mother by telephone, he takes a circuitous route to investigate, only to find a nearby square destroyed by a bomb. In his mother's building, she appears at the door, "an old lady... someone I barely recognized." He takes a temporary job hocking grilled meat and learns his son, Nawwar, has been arrested at the university. The narrator's wife becomes fixated on getting Nawwar supplies as they receive differing reports about his anticipated release. She also demands they leave Aleppo, pushing the narrator on a long journey to the capital of ISIS-held territory in hopes of finding a less volatile place to live. Throughout, the narrator maintains a detached tone, sometimes referring to himself in the third person, which, combined with the episodic storytelling, credibly captures his processing of trauma. Readers will find this fragmented tale of war-torn Aleppo and its displaced intellectuals chilling and insightful.
