A dogged, absurd quest through the nightmare of the Syrian civil war Khaled Khalifa’s Death Is Hard Work is the new novel from the greatest chronicler of Syria’s ongoing and catastrophic civil war: a tale of three ordinary people facing down the stuff of nightmares armed with little more than simple determination. Abdel Latif, an old man from the Aleppo region, dies peacefully in a hospital bed in Damascus. His final wish, conveyed to his youngest son, Bolbol, is to be buried in the family plot in their ancestral village of Anabiya. Though Abdel was hardly an ideal father, and though Bolbol is estranged from his siblings, this conscientious son persuades his older brother Hussein and his sister Fatima to accompany him and the body to Anabiya, which is—after all—only a two-hour drive from Damascus. There’s only one problem: Their country is a war zone. With the landscape of their childhood now a labyrinth of competing armies, whose actions are at once arbitrary and lethal, the siblings’ decision to set aside their differences and honour their father’s request quickly escalates from a dutiful commitment into an epic and life-threatening quest. Syria is no longer any place for heroes, and the trials that confront the family along their journey—while they are captured and recaptured, interrogated, imprisoned, and bombed—will prove to have enormous consequences for them all. A mixture of brutal, front-line reportage and surreal humor evocative of Beckett and Kafka, Death Is Hard Work is an unforgettable journey into a contemporary heart of darkness

In 1980s Syria, a young Muslim girl lives a secluded life behind the veil in the vast and perfumed house of her grandparents. Her three aunts — the pious Maryam, the liberal Safaa, and the free-spirited Marwa — raise her with the aid of their ever-devoted blind servant. Soon the high walls of the family home are no longer able to protect the girl from the social and political chaos outside. Witnessing the ruling dictatorship's bloody campaign against the Muslim Brotherhood, she is filled with hatred for the regime and becomes increasingly radical. In the footsteps of her beloved uncle, Bakr, she launches herself into a fight for her religion, her country, and ultimately, for her own future. Against the backdrop of real-life events, In Praise of Hatred is a stirring, layered story that echoes the violence currently plaguing the Middle East