Description

Prompted by the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, “Burnt Offering” was first written in early 2005 shortly after the news of the Cedar Revolution in Beiruit began to take precedence. The story of Lev Herahia is not entirely unfamiliar to the seventies and eighties generation of American-born Arabs, many of whom continue to hurdle their mistrust for being just that against the fractal weight of old world traditions which, anyway, often confound even their parents. Such is the moral and spiritual dilemma to be found at the center of Lev’s relationship with his mother, Hila, a widow diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and suffering from the onset of glaucoma. Her request to be buried not in her native country of Lebanon, but rather in Damascus, raises even further questions about the race and class divide that would eventually drive Lebanon to war with Israel little over a year after Hariri’s death. Revised and edited for the 16th Annual Boston Review Prize in Fiction Contest (Aleksandar Hemon, Judge), “Burnt Offering” contains the main attractions of a classic, continental family saga, and yet still manages to speak with its own voice.