A fable, parable, and confession, the second novel from the acclaimed author of The Meursault Investigation pays homage to the essential need for fiction and to the freedom from tradition afforded by an adopted language.
Having lost his mother and been shunned by his father, Zabor grows up in the company of books, which teach him a new language. Ever since he can remember, he has been convinced that he has a gift: if he writes, he will stave off death; those captured in the sentences of his notebooks will live longer. Like a kind of inverted Scheherazade saving his fellow men, he experiments night after night with the delirious power of the imagination.
Then, one night, his estranged half brother and the other relatives who would disown him come knocking at the door: his father is going to die and perhaps only Zabor is capable of delaying that fateful moment. Sitting next to the father who has ostracized him, the son writes compulsively, retracing an existence characterized by strangeness, abandonment, and humiliation, but also by wondrous encounters with fictional worlds that he alone in the entire village can access.
Genre: Literary Fiction
Having lost his mother and been shunned by his father, Zabor grows up in the company of books, which teach him a new language. Ever since he can remember, he has been convinced that he has a gift: if he writes, he will stave off death; those captured in the sentences of his notebooks will live longer. Like a kind of inverted Scheherazade saving his fellow men, he experiments night after night with the delirious power of the imagination.
Then, one night, his estranged half brother and the other relatives who would disown him come knocking at the door: his father is going to die and perhaps only Zabor is capable of delaying that fateful moment. Sitting next to the father who has ostracized him, the son writes compulsively, retracing an existence characterized by strangeness, abandonment, and humiliation, but also by wondrous encounters with fictional worlds that he alone in the entire village can access.
Genre: Literary Fiction
Praise for this book
"A magnificent father-and-son saga that also manages to be an ode to the powers of the imagination, Zabor, or The Psalms combines the transcendent hopefulness of Gabriel García Márquez with the comic matter-of-factness of Jim Shepard’s coming-of-age tales. This shimmering novel about literature’s redemptive potential has never been more timely—or more crucial—than right now." - Courtney Maum
"In Zabor, or The Psalms, Kamel Daoud has manifested a writer’s dream: to be able to save lives through prose. For Zabor, this is both a blessing and a curse, particularly when it comes to his dying father. Kamel Daoud has crafted a lyrical, internal novel reminiscent of Camus and Dostoevsky, that explores the nature of life and death, of faith and family. Ultimately, this exquisite novel celebrates not just the power of language but the process by which it’s woven and spun into story. As lovely as it is inventive, this book is one to be savored." - Amy Meyerson
"In Zabor, or The Psalms, Kamel Daoud has manifested a writer’s dream: to be able to save lives through prose. For Zabor, this is both a blessing and a curse, particularly when it comes to his dying father. Kamel Daoud has crafted a lyrical, internal novel reminiscent of Camus and Dostoevsky, that explores the nature of life and death, of faith and family. Ultimately, this exquisite novel celebrates not just the power of language but the process by which it’s woven and spun into story. As lovely as it is inventive, this book is one to be savored." - Amy Meyerson
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