Confessions
by Rabee Jaber
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Description
During the violence and chaos of the Lebanese Civil War, a car pulls up to a roadblock on a narrow side street in Beirut. After a brief and confused exchange, several rounds of bullets are fired into the car, killing everyone inside except for a small boy of four or five. The boy is taken to the hospital, adopted by one of the assassins, and raised in a new family. "My father used to kidnap and kill people..." begins this haunting tale of a child who was raised by the murderer of his real show more family. The narrator of Confessions doesn't shy away from the horrible truth of his murderous father-instead he confronts his troubled upbringing and seeks to understand the distortions and complexities of his memories, his war-torn country, and the quiet war that rages inside of him. show lessTags
Recommendations
Member Recommendations
susanbooks Both books do a great job portraying the bewildering surrealism of fighting a war in your own country. At one minute you're on the battlefield; the next you're watching movies at home with friends. Both are amazing books.
Member Reviews
A powerful meditation on memory and identity, fictionalized through a boy's experience growing into manhood in the Lebanese civil wars. Identity is what we make of it, but when the validity of one's memories are called into question it complicates matters considerably. Even more so when one's life is built on a fundamental lie. A fascinating and disturbing book drawing no facile conclusions about complex matters.
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Author Information
15+ Works 102 Members
Awards and Honors
Common Knowledge
- Important places
- Lebanon
Classifications
- Genres
- Fiction and Literature, General Fiction, Historical Fiction
- DDC/MDS
- 892.7 — Literature & rhetoric Literatures of other languages Afro-Asiatic literatures Arabic (Egypt, Lebanon, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Sudan)
- LCC
- PJ7840 .A289 .I8513 — Language and Literature Oriental languages and literatures Oriental philology and literature Arabic Arabic literature Individual authors or works
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 38
- Popularity
- 743,734
- Reviews
- 1
- Rating
- (3.83)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 4
- ASINs
- 1
