Yalo may recount a Lebanon that is all too familiar for some readers - the deserted streets, uncertainty, paranoia and violence of a country at war with itself. Khoury's book reminds us that tortured humanity can give rise to the diabolical and, as here, great art. 

Elias Khoury’s Yalo is a novel that transcends—as only art can—the deep divisiveness of ideology, both political and religious. Yalo speaks to our universal humanity, to our profound longing for a realization of self and a connection to others. That such a vision should, at this moment in history, come to the American reading public from a great Arab novelist makes this an extraordinarily important publishing event.

Khoury refuses to give the reader an easy position from which to judge Yalo—either as a poor soul or a serial rapist, criminal or victim of torture—or from which to judge Lebanon’s tragic and violent fate. His novel is a dense and stunning work of art.

Yalo establishes Khoury as the sort of novelist whose name is inseparable from a city. Los Angeles has Joan Didion and Raymond Chandler, and Istanbul, Orhan Pamuk. The beautiful, resilient city of Beirut belongs to Khoury.

Great talent is rare and great realizations rarer. This novel has both...Yalo is a tremendous new book and I look forward to more Khoury/Theroux collaborations.