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The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother) by Rabih Alameddine

$28.00

WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD

From the winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction comes a tragicomic love story set in Lebanon, a modern saga of family, memory, and the unbreakable attachment of a son and his mother

In a tiny Beirut apartment, sixty-three-year-old Raja and his mother live side by side. A beloved high school philosophy teacher and “the neighborhood homosexual,” Raja relishes books, meditative walks, order, and solitude. Zalfa, his octogenarian mother, views her son’s desire for privacy as a personal affront. She demands to know every detail of Raja’s work life and love life, boundaries be damned.

When Raja receives an invite to an all-expenses-paid writing residency in America, the timing couldn’t be better. It arrives on the heels of a series of personal and national disasters that have left Raja longing for peace and quiet away from his mother and the heartache of Lebanon. But what at first seems a stroke of good fortune soon leads Raja to recount and relive the very disasters and past betrayals he wishes to forget.

Told in Raja’s irresistible and wickedly funny voice, the novel dances across six decades to tell the unforgettable story of a singular life and its absurdities—a tale of mistakes, self-discovery, trauma, and maybe even forgiveness. Above all, The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother) is a wildly unique and sparkling celebration of love.

WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD

From the winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction comes a tragicomic love story set in Lebanon, a modern saga of family, memory, and the unbreakable attachment of a son and his mother

In a tiny Beirut apartment, sixty-three-year-old Raja and his mother live side by side. A beloved high school philosophy teacher and “the neighborhood homosexual,” Raja relishes books, meditative walks, order, and solitude. Zalfa, his octogenarian mother, views her son’s desire for privacy as a personal affront. She demands to know every detail of Raja’s work life and love life, boundaries be damned.

When Raja receives an invite to an all-expenses-paid writing residency in America, the timing couldn’t be better. It arrives on the heels of a series of personal and national disasters that have left Raja longing for peace and quiet away from his mother and the heartache of Lebanon. But what at first seems a stroke of good fortune soon leads Raja to recount and relive the very disasters and past betrayals he wishes to forget.

Told in Raja’s irresistible and wickedly funny voice, the novel dances across six decades to tell the unforgettable story of a singular life and its absurdities—a tale of mistakes, self-discovery, trauma, and maybe even forgiveness. Above all, The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother) is a wildly unique and sparkling celebration of love.

“Alameddine is a writer with a boundless imagination.”
— NPR

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Rabih Alameddine was born in Amman, Jordan to Lebanese parents, and grew up in Kuwait and Lebanon. He was educated in England and America, and has an engineering degree from UCLA and an MBA from the University of San Francisco. He is also the author of the novel Koolaids: Or The Art of War, the story collection, The Perv, and, most recently, I, the Divine: A Novel in First Chapters. His pieces have appeared in Zoetrope, The Evening Standard and Al-Hayat, among others. Mr. Alameddine, a painter as well as an author, has had solo gallery exhibitions in cities throughout the United States, Europe and the Middle East. He has lectured at numerous universities including M.I.T and the American University of Beirut in Lebanon. Mr. Alameddine was the recipient of a Guggenheim Foundation fellowship in 2002. He divides his time between San Francisco and Beirut.