Seven Rooms brings together highlights from Hotel, a magazine for new approaches to fiction, non-fiction & poetry which, since its inception in 2016, provided a space for experimental reflection on literature's status as art & cultural mediator. Co-published by Tenement Press and Prototype, this anthology captures, refracts, and reflects a vital moment in independent publishing in the UK, and is built on the shared values of openness, collaboration, and total creative freedom.

With empathy, tenderness, and pain, Elias Khoury tells the tragedy of the Lebanese Civil War through the eyes and lives of five Beirutis. Khalil Ahmed Jaber is found dead in a refuse heap, and we follow a journalist investigating the crime. We learn about Khalil from his widow, an engineer, a concierge, the garbage collector who discovered his body, and a doctor. Beirut itself is also a transfigured victim, buried in the rubble of violence, destruction, and inhumanity.

Elias Khoury's Gate of the Sun (deemed a "masterwork" by The New York Times) was a 2006 New York Times Notable book and was named Best Book of the Year by both The Christian Science Monitor and the San Francisco Chronicle. His Yalo inspired the Los Angeles Times to assert that "the beautiful, resilient city of Beirut belongs to Khoury."

Youssef and Maha are distant relatives who find themselves living together in their native Baghdad, seeking shelter and solace from the increasing turmoil that surrounds them. While Youssef is old and has lived through many good years, Maha is young and has seen only sanctions and war. Her life has been shattered by the sectarian violence engulfing Iraq, a country she feels no longer belongs to her. As the chaos in the country inevitably seeps into their household, a rare argument between Maha and Youssef breaks out, as this fateful day takes an unexpected and calamitous turn. Set over 24 hours, The Baghdad Eucharist unravels through the lives of one Christian family; it speaks both to Iraq's peaceful past, as well as its tragic and painful present.

Written in the opening phases of the Lebanese Civil War (1975--1990), "Little Mountain "is told from the perspectives of three characters: a Joint Forces fighter; a distressed civil servant; and an amorphous figure, part fighter, part intellectual. Elias Khoury's language is poetic and piercing as he tells the story of Beirut, civil war, and fractured identity.