Hassan Daoud is one of the Arabic language world's premier novelists, with a good media profile. He is the editor of the cultural supplement in Beirut's daily paper, and his work has appeared in the European and American press as well -- he was published in 2006 in the New York Times Magazine. Four of Daoud's novels have been translated into English, and this work has been long listed for the Arabic Booker Prize, and The Penguin's Song was hailed as the "Best Arabic Novel of the Year" when it was published in 1998. This work treats the constricted spaces in which individuals and families live, as both effects of and outcomes of the often violent shifts to the political and social order—and the built landscape—of Beirut and of Lebanon over the past several decades. It will be of interest to those interested in Lebanon's recent history and current climate. Lebanon is an underserved country in terms of translation, and this work is extremely evocative of a city (Beirut) that is of interest, but largely unfamiliar to many American readers. "--Lisa Rohrbaugh, Leetonia Community P.L., OH, and Library Journal "Hassan Daoud is one of Lebanon's most important living writers. With her usual empathy and elegance, veteran translator Marilyn Booth brings out the idiosyncrasies and pathetic charm of this unlikely protagonist in his suffocating world. This is a heartbreaking novel that shines a light with empathy onto small lives lived humbly on the margins."--Max Weiss, Professor of History and Near Eastern Studies, Princeton University and author of In the Shadow of Sectarianism: Law, Shi'ism and the Making of Modern Lebanon As war wreaks havoc on the historic heart of Beirut, tenants of the old city are pushed to the margins and obliged to live on the surrounding hillsides, where it seems they will stay forever, waiting. The dream of return becomes a way of life in the unending time of war. "The Penguin" is a physically deformed young man who lives with his aging mother and father in one of the "temporary" buildings. His father spends his days on the balcony of their apartment, looking at the far-off city and pining for his lost way of life. Mother and father both find their purpose each day in worrying about the future for their son, while he spends his time in an erotic fantasy world, centered on a young woman who lives in the apartment below. Poverty and family crisis go hand in hand as the young man struggles with his isolation and unfulfilled sexual longing. Voted "The Best Arabic Novel of the Year" when it was first published, The Penguin's Song is a finely wrought parable of how one can live out an entire life in the dream of returning to another.