WGBH Forum Network; Rabih Alameddine: The Hakawati

Alameddine, Rabih · October 7, 2009

Novelist Rabih Alameddine reads from The Hakawati, a framed narrative in the tradition of A Thousand and One Nights and The Canterbury Tales.The framework for this novel lies in the present day, with Osama al-Kharrat traveling to Lebanon to stand vigil at his father's deathbed. While there, his family gathers and begins to pass the time with stories, drawing on the tradition of Osama's grandfather, a hakawati, or storyteller. Some of the stories are contemporary, and some classic tales of the Middle East, but they come together to tell a larger, heartbreaking tale of seemingly endless war, conflicted identity, and survival.