Yalo

"A heartbreaking book and sometimes hypnotic in beauty. . . . With both gentle and cruel images, Khoury wrote a lamentation for the generation that was corrupted and lost its children, and for the children themselves."- Haaretz Praise for Gate of the Sun : "Few have held to the light the myths, tales and rumors of both Israel and the Arabs with such discerning compassion. Gate of the Sun is an imposingly rich and realistic novel, a genuine masterwork."- The New York Times Book Review Elias Khoury's most recent novel propels us into a fantastic universe of skewed reality. We follow the path of a young man, Yalo, who is growing up like a stray dog on the streets of Beirut during the long years of the Lebanese civil war. Living with his mother, who "lost her face in the mirror," he falls in with a dangerous gang whose violent escapades he treats as a game. The game becomes a frightening reality, however, when Yalo is accused of rape and imprisoned. He is forced to confess to crimes of which he has no recollection. As he writes, and rewrites, his testimony, he begins to grasp his family's past and recall all that his psyche has buried, and the true Yalo begins to emerge.

Elias Khoury is a Global Distinguished professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at New York University.