The Myrtle Tree (Paperback)

Jad El Hage

ISBN 10: 0954966643 / ISBN 13: 9780954966645

Published by Banipal Books, London, 2007

About this Item

Paperback. In the author's second novel written in English, he weaves an enthralling saga of a young family trying desperately, and perhaps idealistically, to break the unending cycle of warring clans. In the end, between tradition and modernity, tribal clans and individuals, between love and hate, between town and country - can there be any winners? Adam and his family try to continue their lives in these impossible circumstances, with all they ever knew in continuous turmoil, some forced to leave for foreign lands, and with quite unforeseen results. It includes a gripping narrative to the end by an author who has himself lived through Lebanon's civil war. Young Adam Awad lives in a remote village in the Lebanese countryside, where his uncle maintains there are no "vendettas and bloody feuds like in the North, no history of arms and bloodshed". Adam wants to restore his father's olive press and live a peaceful life, but it is 1976 and civil war is getting closer every day. Shipping may be from our Sydney, NSW warehouse or from our UK or US warehouse, depending on stock availability.

Seller Inventory # 9780954966645

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Myrtle Tree (Paperback)
• Publisher: Banipal Books, London
• Publication Date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0954966643
• ISBN 13: 9780954966645
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: new

About this title

Synopsis

A poignant saga of how a young Lebanese family try everything to stop the encroaching civil war tear apart their rural life. Young Adam Awad, his wife and daughter live in the remote village of his family, in the Lebanese countryside where his uncle maintains there are no “vendettas and bloody feuds like in the North, no history of arms and bloodshed”. He wants to restore his father’s olive press house and live an idyllic life farming in peace, but it is 1976 and the civil war is closing in. The village becomes divided, but still Adam is determined to find a way to stop the escalation… Jad El Hage comments: “The most recent of our wars began in the 1970s and ended by stages in the early 1990s, depending on how one defines ‘beginning’ and ‘end’. This uncertainty characterised the entire conflict. The only certainty is that we killed each other for more than fifteen years.”

About the Author

Jad el Hage was born in Beirut in 1946. A poet, novelist and playwright, his first works appeared in Beirut newspapers in 1966. He has been a journalist since he was sixteen, and an editor and radio broadcaster in Beirut, Paris, Athens, London and Sydney. His published works in Arabic include one novel, seven collections of poetry and one of short stories, a play for radio and four for theatre. He has three novels in English – The Last Migration (Panache Publications, 2002) and The Myrtle Tree (BanBanipal Books, 2007) and One Day in April (Quartet Books, 2011).