Why did he return to Beirut? Why did Karim leave his wife and children and the life he had built in France to return to a homeland still reeling from civil war? Was it to answer his brother Nasim's call to raise a hospital out of the ashes? Was it to kick over the traces of past love affairs? Or to establish the truth behind his father's death? Or was it to confront at last the ghost of the man known only as "Sinalcol", a legendary phantom of the civil war, and a broken mirror of himself? In Beirut, Karim will learn the fate of old comrades, and face a brother who shares a past as divided as the city itself. And he will find that peace is only ever fleeting in a war without end.

Author Biography

Elias Khoury is the author of thirteen novels, four volumes of literary criticism and three plays. He was editor-in-chief of the cultural supplement of Beirut's daily newspaper, An-Nahar, and is Global Distinguished Professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at New York University.