Origins: A Memoir (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780374531768)

Origins, by the world-renowned writer Amin Maalouf, is a sprawling, hemisphere-spanning intergenerational saga.

Set during the last quarter of the nineteenth century and the first quarter of the twentieth, in the mountains of Lebanon and in Havana, Cuba, Origins recounts the family history of the generation of Maalouf's paternal grandfather, Boutros. Why did Boutros, a poet and educator in Lebanon, travel across the globe to rescue his younger brother, Gebrayel, who had settled in Havana?

Maalouf is an energetic and amiable narrator, illuminating the more obscure corners of late Ottoman nationalism, the psychology of Lebanese sectarianism, and the dynamics of family quarrels. He moves with great agility across time and space, and across genres of writing. But he never loses track of his story's central thread: his quest to lift the shadow of legend from his family's past.

Origins is at once a gripping family chronicle and a timely consideration of Lebanese culture and politics.

Author: Amin Maalouf
ISBN-10: 0374531765
ISBN-13: 9780374531768
Publisher: Farrar, Strauss & Giroux-3pl
Language: English
Published: 06/09/2009
Pages: 418
Format: Paperback
Weight: 1.25lbs
Size: 8.90h x 5.90w x 1.20d

Review Citation(s):
New York Times Book Review 07/26/2009 pg. 16