Beirut Hellfire Society
| Author | Rawi Hage |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | |
| Country | Canada |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Literary Fiction, Political, Psychological |
| Publisher | Knopf Canada |
Publication date | 2018 |
| Pages | 288 |
Beirut Hellfire Society: A Novel published in 2018 by Knopf Canada [1], is a political and psychological fiction book written by Lebanese-Canadian novelist Rawi Hage. This is Hage's fourth published novel.
Plot
Set during the middle of the Lebanese Civil War and after the untimely death of his undertaker father, a young man named Pavlov is approached by a member of the mysterious Hellfire Society that his father was a part of. Pavlov learns that this antireligious society—amongst other subversive acts—secretly organizes the burial or cremation of those that have been societally outcast for various non-conformist reasons. The novel chronicles his experiences as Pavlov fulfills his father's work for the society and portrays the decline of community and culture as a result of war.
Publication
Beirut Hellfire Society was originally published by Knopf Canada in 2018 in Toronto, Ontario and then in 2019 it was published by W. W. Norton in New York. Currently the novel has been translated into Arabic, Croatian, French and Italian.
Awards
- Shortlist, Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize[citation needed]
- Shortlist, Governor General's Awards[citation needed]
- Shortlist, Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction[citation needed]
- Longlist, The Scotiabank Giller Prize[citation needed]
Reception
- "[Beirut Hellfire Society] draws on Hage's antic, many-voiced gifts to make a chronicle of war and unrelenting death into a provocative entertainment." - John Williams, New York Times[2]
- "Potent.… Hage’s novel is a brisk, surreal, and often comic plunge into surviving the absurd nihilism of war." - Publishers Weekly[3]
- "Beirut Hellfire Society crackles with the kinetic energy of a dancer…The absurd volume of deaths is also tempered by Hage’s signature dark humor and stylistic playfulness." - Sue Carter, Toronto Star[4]
- "Hallucinatory.… [A] faceted meditation on existentialism." - Sam Sacks, Wall Street Journal[5]
References
- ↑ "by". Penguin Random House Canada.
- ↑ Williams, John (August 7, 2019). "A Bawdy Novel Considers the Tragic Absurdities of Lebanon's Civil War" – via NYTimes.com.
- ↑ "Beirut Hellfire Society". wwnorton.com.
- ↑ "Rawi Hage's new book Beirut Hellfire Society explores mourning, language, ritual". August 24, 2018 – via Toronto Star.
- ↑ Sacks, Sam (July 12, 2019). "Fiction: Colson Whitehead Is One of the Finest Novelists in America" – via www.wsj.com.
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