[Khoury] is a writer of panoramic scope and ambition, and Broken Mirrors is rich with sly ironies, incisive political observations, and a cosmopolitan array of ideas and literary allusions...its narrative jumps about, swirls with overlapping stories and constantly amends itself, reflecting in form the dislocation of the civil war.

Khoury’s capacious and entrancing novel, masterfully translated by the award-winning Humphrey Davies, is an extraordinary achievement.

Within a finely rendered sociopolitical framework, Lebanese novelist Khoury (Gate of the Sun) dives down deeply to portray enduring personal pain.

Broken Mirrors is a masterful achievement in form and style, moving us seamlessly back and forth in time, as it tells the story of Karim Shammas’ return to Beirut after a decade of living in France, and of his life before exile. It is a book which beautifully interrogates our past, our families, the cost of betrayal, and the difficult terrain of filial and romantic love, all inside the maze of human memory. Loss and the effects of war permeate the book’s consciousness, as does an awareness of how stories shape the world and of how, in actuality, our memories are part of the fields of our imaginations: they are the multi-faceted mirror by which we perceive ourselves and others.

[A] stunning literary voice of Beirut’s despair and resilience.

A lyrical, antic, sometimes-plodding embodiment of the complications of self and nationhood.

A wonderful, scintillating web of a tale...superbly translated by the gifted, award-winning Humphrey Davies.

Within a finely rendered sociopolitical framework, Lebanese novelist Khoury (Gate of the Sum) dives down deeply to portray enduring personal pain.

Humphrey Davies’s supple translation of Broken Mirrors appears at an opportune time for American readers...to read Khoury’s literary account of this war is to gain a deeper appreciation for the range of identities, philosophies, and political ambitions that energize conflicts in the Middle East.