3.5
The Angel of History
ByPublisher Description
Set over the course of one night in the waiting room of a psych clinic, The Angel of History follows Yemeni-born poet Jacob as he revisits the events of his life. His memories take him from his maternal upbringing in an Egyptian whorehouse to his adolescence under the aegis of his wealthy father and his life as a gay Arab man in San Francisco at the height of AIDS.
Haunted by an alluring, sassy Satan, who taunts Jacob to remember his painful past, and by dour, frigid Death, who urges him to forget and give up on life, Jacob is also attended to by fourteen saints. With Jacob recalling his life in Cairo, Beirut, Sana'a, Stockholm, and San Francisco, Alameddine gives us a charged philosophical portrayal of a brilliant mind in crisis. This is a profound story that "marks the triumph of memory over oblivion" (
).
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesThe Angel of History Reviews
3.5
NéeaStern
Created 4 months agoShare
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Fahed
Created 6 months agoShare
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Joe Sorenson
Created 6 months agoShare
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“Super prose!!! My heart has been shattered and also rebuilt”
Ally
Created 9 months agoShare
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“Somehow, in the most heartbreaking of novels, this author can still inject wry levity. This book is not for everyone - it’s chaotic (perfectly so), tangential, and will tear at your heart. The dialogue between Satan and Death cracked me up, and then the chapters mourning the loss of the main character’s partner had me near tears. I adored all of the literary and cinematic references. Another top notch read by one of my favourite authors!”
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