Published by Midwest Book Review, October 2018
Farid Abou Char arrives in Beirut on a hot summer morning with his manuscript, looking for a publisher. He is turned down by all of them; nobody reads anymore, he is told. Instead, he accepts a job as a proofreader at the famous old print house Karam Bros., allegedly established in 1908. Disappointed by the menial tasks of checking catalogs and ad copy, Farid secretly hopes that his book will eventually be published.

Published by Booklist, October 2018
“Farid Abu Shaar, a young man earnestly convinced of his own (unproven) literary genius, seeks a publisher for his red-notebook manuscript, The Book to Come. His publication attempts with Beirut’s publishing houses prove futile: “No one reads,” one publisher insists. Although his Karam Brothers Press visit doesn’t lead to publication, he begrudgingly accepts a job as Arabic-language proofreader.

This debut novel by Lebanese filmmaker Meedo Taha is a clever and very entertaining detective story set in Beirut, mixing political imbroglio with personal history.

Publishers weekly, August 2018
“Aspiring author Farid Abu Shaar, the hero of this entertainingly jaundiced look at Beirut’s publishing and printing industry from Lebanese novelist Douaihy (Chased Away), undergoes a series of swift, comical, and brutal face-to-face rejections of his handwritten manuscript, The Book to Come, which is contained in a red notebook and about whose contents the reader learns nothing.

Published by Al Hayat, June 21st, 2018
Hoda Barakat’ Night Post speaks of the world’s dysfunction
She has her own style, in life as in writing. She rarely participates in cultural events because, in her own words, she doesn’t know the art of “marketing and shopping.” She won the Al Owais Award for all her work, which overflows with grief, loss and the search for meaning in the chaos around her. She writes eloquently about characters and dates, and she continued to do so in her latest novel The Night Post, her latest work, where she addresses …

Through Farid Abou Chaar’s desperate attempt to get published in Beirut, a humorous story about the end of this industry.