Summary

A man in his mid forties, Ghaleb sits on the side of a river in Oregon, pretending to fish as he thinks back on the life he just left in Saudi Arabia. He observes a friendly beaver.
Beavers remind Ghaleb of his family. With their big wet eyes, like those of his mother, the greedy hands of his half brother. They stick to each other and build dams, exactly like members of his family are stuck together… leaving him out of the flock. Ghaleb is not a beaver.

Born from a first failed marriage, Ghaleb is the family’s loser. Son of a seemingly powerful man in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, Ghaleb does not live up to his father’s expectations. Appreciated by his step mother, he is nevertheless not considered as a brother by the siblings born from his father’s second marriage, let alone respected like an eldest brother should be. His own mother despises him for being his father’s son.
Ghaleb refused to work with his father, he had other aspirations in life: writing a sociology PhD thesis, marrying the only woman he ever loved, being happy. But he failed at everything that mattered. Expelled from university, he never completed his studies. His father being originally from the countryside, he was not seen as worthy enough to ask for Ghada’s hand, who married a diplomat instead. He was just good enough to be a secret and forever hungry lover she would satisfy with a fast meeting in different cities of the world.

For years, Ghaleb has been escaping through travel. He’d hop into a plane and go anywhere, as far as possible from his family, whenever he needed to breath. But this time is different. This time, Ghaleb wants out. Somewhat like a teenager in need of attention, he waits for his family to miss him, knowing this will never happen. From a safe distance, he looks upon his past life with some tiredness, but mostly a crystal clear mind. Even his twenty year long affair with Ghada is called into question, as she shows up in an unexpected visit. He will go back to Riyadh a few months later only to attend his father’s funeral.

Beavers is the vivid portrait of a recently enriched family in Riyadh, and a very lucid look on family in general: misunderstandings, disappointments, deceptions, money, relations of power, resentment and petty fights. Through Ghaleb’s recent exile and his memories, the reader gets a substantial grasp of the Saudi society, Even more powerful, the narrator’s extremely sharp and honest assessments.

Beavers was shortlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF, 2013); two years later the French translation, “Le Castor” won the Prix de la Littérature Arabe.