There is initially more telling than showing, which makes for a sometimes confusing start, but when the book takes off, it acquires a fascinating, dervish-like spin. Yalo's memories merge with the reality he confronts in his prison cell, yielding not one truth but many—or many versions of one truth.
—The New York Times
After the acclaimed Gate of the Sun, Khoury returns with the spellbinding "confession" of Beirut criminal Daniel Jal'u, aka Yalo, who is picked up by the cops for rape, robbery and suspicion of arms smuggling. Under torture and the threat of more torture, Yalo writes numerous confessions, but seems unable to grasp the whole of his life, producing instead a series of conflicting sequences and inexplicable omissions. Brought up by his grandfather Ephraim, a half-mad Syriac priest, and his mother, Gaby, Yalo joins the army in 1979 and fights in the horrific Lebanese civil wars already under way. Deserting 10 years later, Yalo, after a series of adventures, ends up working as a guard for a rich lawyer whose villa is close to a wooded lovers lane; he progresses from voyeurism to robbing and, in some cases, rape. In so doing he meets Shirin, who will change his life-partially by turning him in. Khoury refuses to give the reader an easy position from which to judge Yalo-either as a poor soul or a serial rapist, criminal or victim of torture-or from which to judge Lebanon's tragic and violent fate. His novel is a dense and stunning work of art. (Feb.)
Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information
Khoury (Middle Eastern & Islamic studies), author of the critically acclaimed Gate of the Sun , among other works, here constructs a dark tale centering on the interrogation and torture of the titular Yalo. A product of Lebanon's brutal civil war, Yalo is accused of robbery and rape and is suspected of having been involved in even more nefarious activities. Imprisoned and forced to confess to crimes he has no memory of committing, Yalo attempts to re-create his past, and the absorbing story of his mother and her own past emerges. While readers will generally sympathize with Yalo's confusion and pain, they may find it hard to have feelings for the accused rapist. Still, Khoury's glimpse of a country torn apart by war and politics is an essential read for those interested in Lebanese culture and community. Recommended for literary collections.-Alicia Korenman, Florida State Univ. Lib., Tallahassee
Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
The "confession" of an ingenuous, conflicted foot soldier in Lebanon's recent (1975-90) civil war forms the complex subject of this 2002 novel from that country's internationally acclaimed author (Gate of the Sun, 2006, etc.). The book is composed of multiple narratives which complement and contradict one another, as accused terrorist Daniel Jal'u (nicknamed "Yalo") writes successive versions of his life story, under orders from his captors. We gradually learn that Yalo, whose father abandoned his wife and child, grew up among Beirut's minority population in a house ruled by his "Black Grandfather," a choleric priest, and shared with Yalo's passive Lebanese mother Gaby, involved in a fruitless affair with a married tailor. Yalo gradually emerges as a slow-witted follower who drifts into the army and flees it when a duplicitous comrade persuades him to commit robbery and escape to Paris. He eludes prosecution when a wealthy attorney (and secret arms dealer) hires him as a guard at his lavish Beirut villa-then stumbles into the dreamlike commission of rape and robbery (to Yalo, these crimes seem romantic exploits) and is subjected to false allegations of his involvement in "planting explosives and killing innocent people." Khoury wrests real poignancy from Yalo's ignorance of the truth of his own experiences, subtly arranging this luckless character's acquaintances and relationships into a nagging pattern of infatuation and engagement, estrangement, rejection and guilt. Both innocent victim and violent oppressor, Yalo sorts through his roiling memories, testing one possible story against another, omitting incriminating details only to acknowledge their crucial relevance-eventually becomingestranged even from himself, in a surreal climax that follows the rejection of his very confession. Khoury's unsparing portrayal of a man without a country, a history or even an identity dominates this deceptively intricate novel.
Elias Khoury’s Yalo is a novel that transcends—as only art can—the deep divisiveness of ideology, both political and religious. Yalo speaks to our universal humanity, to our profound longing for a realization of self and a connection to others. That such a vision should, at this moment in history, come to the American reading public from a great Arab novelist makes this an extraordinarily important publishing event. —Robert Olen Butler
Khoury refuses to give the reader an easy position from which to judge Yalo – either as a poor soul or a serial rapist, criminal or victim of torture – or from which to judge Lebanon’s tragic and violent fate. His novel is a dense and stunning work of art. —Publishers Weekly
How to write Beirut? . . . with words and images that stumble with weariness, that collapse from the heat, from the stone which composes them only to crumble in turn?...This is why Khoury’s fiction is so powerful. The intent of the writing is to restore its soul. —Tahar Ben Jelloun
Praise for Elias Khoury’s Gate of the Sun
A remarkable novel. —Harper’s Magazine
There has been powerful fiction about Palestinians . . . but few have held to the light the myths, tales and rumors of both Israel and the Arabs with such discerning compassion. In Humphrey Davies’ sparely poetic translation, Gate of the Sun is an imposingly rich and realistic novel, a genuine masterwork. —The New York Times Book Review
