num_pages: 291
description: One of Beiruts most celebrated voices Rabih Alameddine follows his international bestseller The Hakawati with a heartrending novel that celebrates the singular life of an obsessive introvert revealing Beiruts beauties and horrors along the way.Aaliya Sohbi lives alone in her Beirut apartment surrounded by stockpiles of books. Godless fatherless divorced and childless Aaliya is her familys unnecessary appendage. Every year she translates a new favorite book into Arabic then stows it away. The thirty-seven books that Aaliya has translated have never been readby anyone. After overhearing her neighbors the three witches discussing her too-white hair Aaliya accidentally dyes her hair too blue.In this breathtaking portrait of a reclusive womans late-life crisis readers follow Aaliyas digressive mind as it ricochets across visions of past and present Beirut. Insightful musings on literature philosophy and art are invaded by memories of the Lebanese Civil War and Aaliyas volatile past. As she tries to overcome her aging body and spontaneous emotional upwellings Aaliya is faced with an unthinkable disaster that threatens to shatter the little life she has left.A love letter to literature and its power to define who we are the gifted Rabih Alameddine has given us a nuanced rendering of a single woman's reclusive life in the Middle East.
language: English
title: An Unnecessary Woman
publisher: Grove Press