The Hakawati; I, the Divine; Koolaids; the story collection, The Perv; and one work of nonfiction, Comforting Myths. He has won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and was a finalist for the National Book Award. He received the Dos Passos Prize in 2019 and a Lannan Award in 2021.
Alameddine's new novel is The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother).
At Lit Hub Alameddine tagged six "depressing novels that can lift you out of depression." One title on the list:
Leo Tolstoy, Anna KareninaRead about another novel on the list.
Why it’s depressing:
Unhappily married Anna decides to have an affair, fucks everything up, causes much pain to many, and finally commits suicide by train decapitation. Ouch!
Why it will lift you out of your depression:
Because it’s fucking brilliant, arguably the best novel ever written. If asked to define the word ravishing, I’d reply Anna Karenina. However, that isn’t the only reason why the novel is uplifting. As with The Hairdresser’s Son [by Gerbrand Bakker], reading about Anna’s loneliness helps us see our own. It shows us our wound, and hopefully, once we see it, we might be able to apply antibiotics and maybe some gauze.
Anna Karenina also appears on Zhanna Slor's list of three dangerous affairs in literature, Zhanna Slor's list of three dangerous affairs in literature, Anna Orhanen's list of eleven of the very best literary evocations of winter, Cathy Rentzenbrink's top ten list of bookworms in fiction, Amanda Craig's list of ten of the best-dressed characters in fiction, Ceri Radford's list often of the finest literary romances ever told, Tessa Hadley's list of six favorite examinations of art in fiction, Kathryn Harrison's list of six favorite epic novels, Jane Corry's list of five of literature's more fearsome families, Neel Mukherjee's six favorite books list, Viv Groskop's top ten list of life lessons from Russian literature, Elizabeth Day's top ten list of parties in fiction, Grant Ginder's top ten list of the more loathsome people in literature, Louis De Berniéres's six best books list, Martin Seay's ten best long books list, Jeffrey Lent's top ten list of books about justice and redemption, Bethan Roberts's top ten list of novels about childbirth, Hannah Jane Parkinson's list of the ten worst couples in literature, Hanna McGrath's top fifteen list of epigraphs, Amelia Schonbek's list of three classic novels that pass the Bechdel test, Rachel Thompson's top ten list of the greatest deaths in fiction, Melissa Albert's recommended reading list for eight villains, Alison MacLeod's top ten list of stories about infidelity, David Denby's six favorite books list, Howard Jacobson's list of his five favorite literary heroines, Eleanor Birne's top ten list of books on motherhood, Esther Freud's top ten list of love stories, Chika Unigwe's six favorite books list, Elizabeth Kostova's list of favorite books, James Gray's list of best books, Marie Arana's list of the best books about love, Ha Jin's most important books list, Tom Perrotta's ten favorite books list, Claire Messud's list of her five most important books, Alexander McCall Smith's list of his five most important books, Mohsin Hamid's list of his ten favorite books, Louis Begley's list of favorite novels about cheating lovers, and among the top ten works of literature according to Peter Carey and Norman Mailer. John Mullan put it on his lists of ten of the best balls in literature, ten of the best erotic dreams in literature, ten of the best coups de foudre in literature, ten of the best births in literature, and ten of the best ice-skating episodes in literature.
--Marshal Zeringue
Posts
