Review of White Masks by AW in Middle East Journal

First published in Arabic in 1981, this novel tells the story of a Lebanese civil servant’s disappearance and subsequent murder from the point of a former journalism student who was captivated by the mysterious circumstances of the death. Among the people he interviews are a garbage collector, the doctor who performed the autopsy, a widow, and a soldier. The characters’ interwoven stories reveal the horrors of the Lebanese civil war that wreaked havoc on the people of Beirut. Appearing after the wild success of Khoury’s previous novels translated into English, Gates of the Sun and Yalo, Maia Tabet’s new translation of White Masks draws the reader into a riveting tale of personal suffering within a corrupt society.