Author(s): Elias Khoury

Fiction

Why did he return to Beirut? Why did Karim leave his wife and children and the life he had built in France to return to a homeland still reeling from war? It was not to answer his brother Naseem's call and raise a hospital out the ashes; it was not to pursue past sweethearts and father the son his wife never gave him. It was to find a man, or the ghost of a man, a man known only as Sinalcol, legendary hero of the civil war, and a broken mirror of himself. In Beirut Karim will confront the fate of old comrades, the truth about his father's death and a brother who is all but a twin in appearance but shares nothing of his soul. And he will learn that peace is only ever fleeting in a war without end.