Taken from Viaggioadoriente, by Francesca Del Vecchio, (and loosely translated).
September 2014.
The Mediterranean Festival of Literature, in its 12th edition this year, has tackled the narration of “Identity”. And who better than the Lebanese novelist Jabbour Douaihy could represent the essence of this argument, using a text whose starting point is precisely that of identity, “St. George looked elsewhere” (Feltrinelli 2012) (Chased away).

“A candid depiction of death, June Rain is one of the most powerful novels on Lebanon. It is rich, complex, beautifully written and more importantly, beautifully translated by Paula Haydar. This work is outstanding and will continue to remain relevant.”

The author of “Rose Fountain Motel”, “June rain” and “Chased away” recently published his new novel “American Neighborhood”. The book tells the story of an ordinary young man recruited for the djihad in Iraq.

“American neighborhood” is not the story of a particular district of Tripoli, as much as it is the story of the whole city. The novel depicts the city in time and space, and taints it in multiple colors, as the author seems to have dipped his brush in its past and present, creating for us a heart warming portrait.

The novel has achieved through its narrative techniques an accurate characterisation of our current reality artfully, promoting the humane while nevertheless deploring the different manifestations of terrorism. The book also successfully uncovers the political and social roots of the phenomenon [of djihadism], which threatens our contemporary societies with destruction and collapse.

Douaihy draws the portrait of society, in his new novel “American neighborhood “, where each sentence imprints on the reader’s mind an evocative primeval image.