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Book Cover for: The Angel of History, Rabih Alameddine

The Angel of History

Rabih Alameddine

Reader Score

76%

76% of readers

recommend this book

Critic Reviews

Good

Based on 11 reviews on

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Winner of the Northern California Book Award, the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction, and the Arab American Book Award for Fiction

"An elegy for a lost generation of gay men [and] a structurally inventive bildungsroman . . . The Angel of History marks the triumph of memory over oblivion." --Bookforum

"A sprawling fever dream of a novel, by turns beautiful and horrifying, and impossible to forget . . . When Alameddine aims for the heart, he doesn't miss, and he hits hard . . . The Angel of History isn't just a brilliant novel, it's a heartfelt cry in the dark, a reminder that we can never forget our past, the friends and family we've loved and lost. It's a raw love letter from those who survived a plague to those who didn't." --NPR.org

From National Book Award finalist Rabih Alameddine, The Angel of History follows Yemeni-born Jacob as he revisits his life over the course of one night in the waiting room of a psych clinic. We see 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. All the while, Jacob is taunted mercilessly by the presence of alluring Satan, who urges remember his painful past and dour Death who urges him to forget and give up. Set in Cairo and Beirut; Sana'a, Stockholm, and San Francisco; this is a profound and winning story of the war between memory and oblivion and a spectacular portrait of a man and an era of deep political and social upheaval.

"A remarkable novel, a commentary of love and death, creativity and spirituality, memory and survival . . . brilliant . . . [it] hits an emotional nerve." --Los Angeles Review of Books

"Laced with literary references . . . a kaleidoscopic storytelling style, and philosophical humor." --New Yorker

Book Details

  • Publisher: Grove Press
  • Publish Date: Oct 17th, 2017
  • Pages: 304
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 8.25in - 5.50in - 0.88in - 0.70lb
  • EAN: 9780802127198
  • Categories: LiteraryCultural HeritageLGBTQ+ - Gay

About the Author

Rabih Alameddine is the author of the novels An Unnecessary Woman; I, the Divine; Koolaids; The Hakawati; and the story collection, The Perv.

Critics’ reviews

Praise for this book

Praise for The Angel of History:

Winner of the Northern California Book Award, the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction, and the Arab American Book Award for Fiction
A Washington Independent Review of Books, Literary Hub, and Shelf Awareness Best Book of the Year

"Alameddine, entrancing and unflinching, is in easy command of his bricolage narrative, and he leavens its tragedy with wit." --New York Times Book Review

"An elegy for a lost generation of gay men [and] a structurally inventive bildungsroman . . . The Angel of History marks the triumph of memory over oblivion." --Bookforum

"The narrative spans every corner of the globe to reveal a razor-sharp mind in turmoil, reflecting a wider consciousness of the social unrest around him." --Harper's Bazaar online

"The Angel of History takes place in a single day, but it reads like an epic . . . a sprawling fever dream of a novel, by turns beautiful and horrifying, and impossible to forget . . . Alameddine is a writer with a boundless imagination . . . [his] writing is so beautiful, so exuberant . . . When Alameddine aims for the heart, he doesn't miss, and he hits hard . . . The Angel of History isn't just a brilliant novel, it's a heartfelt cry in the dark, a reminder that we can never forget our past, the friends and family we've loved and lost. It's a raw love letter from those who survived a plague to those who didn't." --NPR.org

"A remarkable novel, a commentary of love and death, creativity and spirituality, memory and survival . . . brilliant . . . [it] hits an emotional nerve." --Los Angeles Review of Books

"Excellent, lissome . . . the novel is a work of social and cultural memorialization . . . The Angel of History suggests that to be alienated--from past love and from the past itself--is to open the door to memory and creation . . . to read Alameddine's prose is to see loss, if not mastered, then at least made into lively and living art." --San Francisco Chronicle

"Laced with literary references . . . a kaleidoscopic storytelling style, and philosophical humor." --New Yorker

"A poignant act of remembering by one AIDS survivor to a new generation . . . an evocative religious and sexual elegiac with both dark and stirring comedy . . . a poetic combination of Mapplethorpean imagery and religious symbolism. It's uncomfortable and enlightening; an experiment in merging the present with the past, in merging a gay life characterized by assimilation with a gay life celebratory of its deviancy. It dances between the ecstasy of sexual release and the ecstasy of religious rapture . . . an unforgettable novel. The Angel of History is cathartic tale of outsiders and insiders and what's lost in becoming each." --PopMatters

"This is a story of one life and many themes: in this case, death and sex; religion; war; the purpose of art and of love and loss; and the need to remember. Here is a book, full of story, unrepentantly political at every level. At a time when many western writers seem to be in retreat from saying anything that could be construed as political, Alameddine says it all, shamelessly, gloriously." --Guardian

"Alameddine has created a scintillating, original work whose moral complex