Hear Our Defeats [Paperback]

From the winner of the Prix Goncourt

Timely and provocative,Hear Our Defeatsis a novel about the battles that define us. The battles lost, won, and those still being fought.

A French intelligence officer, Assem, is tasked with tracking down a former member of the U.S. Special Forces suspected of drug trafficking during the War in Afghanistan. En route to Beirut he shares a night with Miriam, an Iraqi archaeologist, who is in a race against time to save ancient artifacts across the Middle East from the destruction wreaked by ISIS.

Woven into these two forceful, gripping storylines are stylish meditations on humankinds bellicose history: Hannibals failed march on Rome and the burning of his fleet on the waters of the Mediterranean; Grants pursuit of the Confederates into rural Virginia; Robert E. Lees surrender at Appomattox Courthouse; and Emperor Haile Selassies swift retreat from Ethiopia. All turning points in world history, each showing a different facet of how nations and individuals face defeat.

Gaud? writes with a riveting immediacy, seamlessly taking the reader across the battlefields of our past to reflect upon the implications of conflicts being waged today.

TARGET CONSUMER

Historical Fiction

Literary Fiction

Spy Fiction

KEY SELLING POINTS

Historical figures: Haile Selassie, General Hannibal, Muammar Gaddafi, Ulysses S. Grant, Robert E. Lee + Osama Bin Laden

Scenes set during the raid on Osama Bin Ladens Abottabad compound and his burial at sea

Story backdrop is ISIS destroying artifacts across the Middle East, specifically the Nineveh Gates in Mosul and the ancient city of Palmyra (videos of the destruction of these cultural sites went viral). This backdrop makes for a heightened reading.

Timeliness

Real speeches from historical figures used and sourced.

Historical events: War in Afghanistan, the surrender at Appomattox Courthousló,