Kite

by Dominique Eddé, Ros Schwartz (Translation)

Rich and multilayered, with elements of both memoir and fiction, Dominique Eddé’s Kite defies categorization. Beginning in the 1960s and ending in the late ’80s, it is at once a narrative of a passionate, and ultimately tragic, relationship between Mali and Farid and the simultaneous decline of Egyptian-Lebanese society. Densely populated with myriad characters, Kite chronicles the casualties of social conventions, religious divisions and cultural clichés. The differences between East and West are central to the tension of Eddé’s book and share the responsibility for an unavoidable impasse between the lovers. This fragmented narrative—written in several voices that reflect the fragmented lives of those caught up in the madness of war—calls into question an entire way of living and thinking.

 

In lyrical, elegant, original, and often startling prose, Eddé weaves together multiple strands—meditating on the nature of language, investigating the concept of the novel, and powerfully depicting the experience of being blind. Deftly evoking the intellectual scene of Beirut in the ’60s, Lebanon’s mountainscapes, and the urban settings of Cairo, Paris, and London, Kite probes memory with a curious mix of irony and melancholy, ending up in a place beyond hope and despair.

Genres: Lebanon, Fiction

303 pages, Hardcover

First published September 11, 2003

Reviews

[Aditi Somani · Rating 5 out of 5]

my heart is bleeding

[Aaron (Typographical Era) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite often, a novel will be described as being unclassifiable. I’m not sure if that label is supposed to be a marketing trick that’s intended to make the product appeal to certain niche audiences, a declaration of how brilliantly different the work is, or a cautionary warning to the casual reader of mass market paperbacks to steer clear. Whatever the intention, Dominique Edde’s Best Translated Book Award longlisted novel Kite fits the bill, and I find myself at a bit of loss when attempting to describe it to others.

Here’s the best I’ve come up with to this point. It’s a novel about a group of people who know that they’re in a novel, some of which are busy struggling with writing their own novels, two of which are in love, one of which is content with his marriage to someone else. Its story spans several decades, is set against the political backdrop of the Middle Eastern climate of constant war, and it was originally penned in the French language.

READ MORE:
http://www.typographicalera.com/kite-...

[raghad · Rating 5 out of 5]

an incredible fucking book, i’ve got seven pages left and i so desperately don’t want to finish them but also so desperately want to keep on reading

[Marcia Lynx]

My review: http://arablit.wordpress.com/2013/04/...