A multi-award-winning tale of love and courage, picked by the Independent as one of the 30 Best Debut Novels of 2019.

Inspired by One Thousand and One Nights, Ahmad Danny Ramadan’s innovative and poetic debut novel tells the story of two lovers anchored to the memory of a dying Syria. One is Hakawati, the storyteller, keeping life in forward motion by relaying remembered fables and incidents from their youth to his dying partner. Each night he spins stories of a Damascus childhood, of leaving home, of persecution and hardship, and of his fated meeting with his lover. Meanwhile, Death himself, in his dark cloak, shares the house with the two men, eavesdropping on their secrets as he awaits their final undoing.

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‘Published by an independent new publisher, this debut is infused with the spirit of One Thousand and One Nights as it moves from the mountains of Syria to Lebanon, Turkey, Egypt and, finally, Canada’

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‘along the way there are moments and scenes of intense clarity and poignancy that will stop readers in their tracks and allows us to learn much more about the cruelties of life in far-flung lands’ ‘a testament to the troubles enduring by a beleaguered minority’

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‘The quality of the author’s storytelling skills immediately drew me into this moving, disturbing and yet ultimately hopeful story . . . 5/5’

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‘shuns easy universalism while digging deep into the commonalities of gay life that across boundaries and borders’

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‘skilfully evasive … a complex portrait of placelessness’