De Niro's Game: A Novel [Paperback]

Childhood best friends Bassam and George have grown to be men in war-ravaged Beirut. Now they must choose between the only two futures available to them: to stay in the devastated city and consolidate power through crime or to go into exile abroad, alienated from the only existence they have ever known.

Told in a distinctive, captivating voice that fuses vivid cinematic imagery, a page-turning plot, and exquisite, dark poetry,De Niro's Gameis an explosive portrait of life in a war zone and a powerful meditation on what comes after. It won the prestigious International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award in 2008.

...a hallucinatory vision of how war corrupts even friendship. Written in English and calling upon Arabic poetry and French philosophy, De Niros Game forms an intriguing trilingual hybrid that should cement its appeal worldwide....an impressive first outing for Hage.East meets West in this stunning first novel yielding a totally fresh perspective on war-torn Beirut....the language, restless, enervated, slides from blunt and colorless to the candenced, figuring [the protagonists] worlds endless cycle of revolution and despair...Remarkable.Hage brilliantly condenses these short, incendiary lives: while the setting is relatively contemporary, the conflict and language are centuries old....vividly evocative of the chaos of conflict and the moral confusion of young men....Hollywood noir meets opium dreams in a blasted landscape of war-wasted young lives.Rawi Hages debut novel burns with a white-hot brilliance......youll find it hard not to think of the fevered dream of Howl....a soaring, lyrical triumph...this novel isnt reportage; its troubling and transcendent art.Hage is a talented and versatile writer who will certainly raise the threshold of Anglophone Arab-Canadian fiction.Oustanding...this extraordinary novel of two young men surrounded by the violence and tragedy of the Lebanese Civil War hits you in the stomach. Dl³+