This article by Catherine Simon, was published in French, by Le Monde des Livres
September 2012
What follows is an approximate translation into English.
 
A historical novel, then? A parody rather. The stories told here are full of errors, as childhood memories and village gossip usually are. This is one of the strokes of genius of this kaleidoscopic book, an almost ethnological dive of a writer among her people: everything is truthful, nothing is quite true. It was nice to come across the shadows of Mussolini and Petain, President Chamoun or that of General …

In the Spring of 2015, Hoda Barakat was on the shortlist of the International Man Booker Prize.
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