'A soulful and perfectly unsentimental writer...' MOHSIN HAMID December, 1907: one morning after a night of drunken carousing in the city, Hanna and his friend Zakariya return home to their village near Aleppo-only to discover a scene of tragedy. A devastating flood has levelled their homes, shops and places of worship, and their neighbours, families and children are nearly all dead. Their lives will never be the same. Tracing Hanna's life before and after the flood-when he embarks on a search for the meaning of life-No One Prayed Over Their Graves is a portrait of a wider society on the verge of great change; from the provincial village to the burgeoning modernity of the city, where Christians, Muslims, and Jews live and work together, united in their love for Aleppo and their dreams for the future.

A GUARDIAN BOOK OF THE YEAR

A FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARDS IN TRANSLATED LITERATURE

SHORTLISTED FOR THE SAIF GHOBASH BANIPAL PRIZE

Death Is Hard Work is a tale of three people embarking on an absurd quest - an unforgettable journey into a contemporary heart of darkness.

At a hospital in Damascus, Syria, Abdel Latif's final wish is to be buried in the family plot near Aleppo - just a two-hour drive away. Bolbol, his youngest son, persuades his estranged brother and sister to accompany him and their father's body to the ancestral village. But Syria is a war zone, and the trials that confront the family on their journey will have enormous consequences for them all.

In the once beautiful city of Aleppo, one Syrian family collapses into tragedy and ruin. The mother, abandoned by her husband, struggles to raise her children alone. Her daughter Sawsan flirts with the militias, the ruling party, and finally religion, seeking but never finding salvation. All are slowly choked in the fog of violence and decay, as their lives are plundered and their dreams wrecked by the brutal Assad regime. Set between the 1960s and 2000s, No Knives in the Kitchens of this City is a graceful and profound depiction of life under tyranny. Through the story of a single family, we read the disintegration of a whole society over half a century. This novel teaches us about grief, fear, and the end of beauty.

1980s Syria, our young narrator is living a secluded life behind the veil in the vast and perfumed house of her grandparents in Aleppo. Her three aunts, Maryam the pious one; Safaa, the liberal; and the free-spirited Marwa, bring her up with the aid of their ever-devoted blind servant. Soon the high walls of the family home are unable to protect her from the social and political changes outside. Witnessing the crackdowns of the ruling dictatorship against Muslims, she is filled with hatred for her oppressors, and becomes increasingly fundamentalist. In the footsteps of her beloved uncle Bakr, she takes on the party, launching herself into a fight for her religion, her country, and ultimately, her own future. On a backdrop of real-life events that occurred during the Syrian regime's ruthless suppression of the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1980s, IN PRAISE OF HATRED is a stirring, sensual story. Its elegant use of traditional, layered storytelling is a powerful echo of the modern-day tragedy that is now taking place in the Middle East.