The Gates of Paradise

A fast-paced, suspenseful novel that questions desire, painful family dynamics, and the preoccupations with Jihadism.

Yaqoub, a Kuwaiti man in his sixties, devotes all his time to managing his many successful businesses. His wife, frustrated by the deteriorating situation of their marriage, fills the void in her existence with unbridled consumption. But the luxury in which their family bathes cannot hide the echoes of a terrible absence, that of Ahmad, the youngest son, who has turned his back on his family to join a jihadist organization in Syria. When Yaqoub discovers an attraction—as irremediable as it is unexpected—for one of his employees, a young woman of Iranian origin, he almost loses his footing. Caught between worry for the fate of his son and the exaltation that this budding relationship gives him, he suddenly learns that Ahmad is being held hostage by a rival terrorist group who is demanding a colossal ransom.

This captivating and suspenseful novel—a true immersion in the daily life of an ultra-rich Kuwaiti family—questions desire, painful family dynamics, and the preoccupations with jihadism. Through the doubts of this patriarchal figure brought to review his life and his choices through the prism of unforeseen upheavals, it is the picture of a very current society that the author paints, in which generations and visions of the world are opposed.

Taleb Alrefai was born in Kuwait in 1958. He is the award-winning author of a dozen novels and several collections of short stories. He was named Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres (Knight of Arts and Letters) in France in 2023.

Kay Heikkinen is a translator and academic who holds a PhD from Harvard University and was Ibn Rushd Lecturer of Arabic at the University of Chicago. Among other books, she has translated Naguib Mahfouz’s In the Time of Love and Radwa Ashour’s The Woman from Tantoura and the Granada trilogy.