True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother)

Rabih Alameddine is the author of the novels An Unnecessary Woman; I, the Divine; Koolaids; The Hakawati; and the story collection, The Perv.

Alameddine is gifted at finding the humor in what for most writers would be singular traumatic themes, including AIDS, the Lebanese Civil War, and the plight of Middle Eastern migrants. Here, he applies his sardonic wit again to the Civil War as well as the calamities of Covid-19, Lebanon's banking collapse, and the 2020 Beirut port explosion... a peculiar but lively and humane book [and] a sharp exploration of resilience in dark times