I, The Divine

'In this delightful novel, Alameddine takes his greatest risks yet, and succeeds brilliantly, in a work that while marked by radical formal innovation, manages to be warm, sad, funny and moving' Michael Chabon

Named by her grandfather after 'the Divine' Sarah Bernhardt, Sarah Nour El-Din grows up in Beirut against the tense background of civil war. But the young Sarah finds pleasure in the everyday - her first cigarette, first kiss, seeking revenge on her tight-lipped stepmother. Then, with adulthood, comes an awareness of the fragility of life. After two failed marriages, the loss of her son, the death of one sister and the imprisonment of another, Sarah begins to tell her story. But this story is not so easy to tell.

A novel written entirely in first chapters, I, THE DIVINE is an honest and touching story of one woman's struggle to come to terms with her past.

Review: A perfect novel...Alameddine is one of the greatest living writers working in English. * Sarah Schulman, Literary Hub *
Rabih Alameddine is one our most daring writers - daring not in the cheap sense of lurid or racy, but as a surgeon, a philosopher, an explorer, or a dancer. In this delightful novel, he takes his greatest risks yet, and succeeds brilliantly, in a work that while marked by radical formal innovation, manages to be warm, sad, funny and moving. * Michael Chabon *
Alameddine's new novel unfolds like a secret... creating a tale...humorous and heartbreaking and always real * Los Angeles Times *
Wonderful, irresistibly unique, funny, and amazing * Amy Tan *
Moving and memorable * Boston Globe *