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Rabih Alameddine's new novel, The Hakawati, takes readers from the shimmering dunes of ancient Egypt to the war-torn streets of 21st-century Lebanon. "If any work of fiction might be powerful enough to transcend the mountain of polemic, historical inquiry, policy analysis, and reportage that stands between the Western reader and the Arab soul, it's this wonder of a book," according to the New York Times Book Review. Alameddine is the author of Koolaids and I, the Divine: A Novel in First Chapters, as well as the story collection The Perv.