Alameddine’s sixth book, which earlier this year won the PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction, is an extraordinary chronicle of the refugees who were forced to flee after the Syrian civil war began in 2011, the humanitarian crisis that grew more tragic by the year, and the struggles of the volunteers who work to stabilize their lives. By 2015, over a million migrants and asylum seekers, fleeing wars in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan, sought asylum in Europe, arriving by raft on the Greek island of Lesbos. The book is also a critique of the global divide between passive observers and displaced people, and how, in a world that is ever smaller, those in stable democracies have become numb to the oppression of hostile governments and violent militias. I was honored to write about the novel for Alta Journal’s California Book Club, and being a fan of Alameddine’s books, was excited to delve into the novel’s striking visual style, and precise, atmospheric detail (Alameddine is also an accomplished painter). You can see Rabih Alameddine in conversation with CBC host John Freeman and special guest Aleksandar Hemon, on August 18 at 5 p.m. Full details follow the essay, which you can read here.