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    Death is Hard Work: A Novel
    Death is Hard Work: A Novel
    Death is Hard Work: A Novel
    Audiobook5 hours

    Death is Hard Work: A Novel

    Written by Khaled Khalifa

    Narrated by Neil Shah

    3.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    Death Is Hard Work is the new novel from the greatest chronicler of Syria's ongoing and catastrophic civil war: a tale of three ordinary people facing down the stuff of nightmares armed with little more than simple determination.

    Abdel Latif, an old man from the Aleppo region, dies peacefully in a hospital bed in Damascus. His final wish, conveyed to his youngest son, Bolbol, is to be buried in the family plot in their ancestral village of Anabiya. Though Abdel was hardly an ideal father, and though Bolbol is estranged from his siblings, this conscientious son persuades his older brother Hussein and his sister Fatima to accompany him and the body to Anabiya, which is-after all-only a two-hour drive from Damascus. There's only one problem: Their country is a war zone.

    With the landscape of their childhood now a labyrinth of competing armies whose actions are at once arbitrary and lethal, the siblings' decision to set aside their differences and honor their father's request quickly balloons from a minor commitment into an epic and life-threatening quest. Syria, however, is no longer a place for heroes, and the decisions the family must make along the way-as they find themselves captured and recaptured, interrogated, imprisoned, and bombed-will prove to have enormous consequences for all of them.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHighbridge Company
    TranslatorLeri Price
    Release dateFeb 12, 2019
    ISBN9781684418640
    Author

    Khaled Khalifa

    Khaled Khalifa (1964–2023) was born near Aleppo, Syria, the fifth child of a family of thirteen siblings. He studied law at Aleppo University and actively participated in the foundation of Aleph magazine with a group of writers and poets. A few months later, the magazine was closed down by Syrian censorship. Active in the arts scene in Damascus where he lived, Khalifa was a writer of screenplays for television and cinema as well as novels that explore Syrian history. His 2019 novel Death Is Hard Work was a finalist for the National Book Award.

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    Reviews for Death is Hard Work

    3.5/5

    70 ratings4 reviews

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    • 3/5
      After their father dies two brothers and their sister travel across Syria to bring their father to be buried next to their Aunt. We learn of the family members' stories.The narrator has a dry flat tone.
    • 3/5
      Our book group picked this, I ended up the only one who finished it. (though one member was within 5 pages, and planned to finish). So not a favorite, I think largely because it is told in stream of consciousness, which made the story hard to follow. It's about a family in Aleppo, and I think the point of the novel is to compare the dysfunction of the family to the dysfunction of the regime. Most of the people in the family were unappealing, and they didn't seem to stay in character. (not sure what that was about.)The book may have lost some in translation. In the beginning, I thought it was really well-written, but then I stopped enjoying the writing. I think that might have been different if I could read Arabic.In the end, I was glad I read the book, as it did give me things to think about, and also I think it is the only Syrian book I have read. But all-in-all, I think for a more literary reader than myself or most of my friends.
    • 4/5
      A great story of two brothers in Syria. The sister doesn't get much time, she felt like a silent ghost. But it is a great window into the tragedy going on with the war.
    • 3/5
      3.5-4 stars, may adjust after a month or 2 if I'm still thinking about this one.Abdul Latuf dies in Damascus. His last request is to be buried next to his sister, who immolated herself on her wedding day decades earlier, in their hometown of Anabiya. This seems like a normal request, but Syria is still in a state of Civil War. Nonetheless his adult children Bolbol, Hussein, and Fatima, set out with his body to travel the 250 km to fulfill his last request.In the 3 days they spend on the road, we learn of their family history and why they are all estranged. We learn of the traditions that led to their aunt's immolation, their father's own second marriage to his original love, and each of their frustrations with societal and familial expectations. Meanwhile, they, along with their father's decomposing body, are traveling through checkpoints manned by the regime, and two different rebel groups. Bribes, hours waiting, and threats are common. When on the road, they see bombed out towns, military convoys, wild dogs.This book started (and, really, stayed) very slow for me. But they contrasting picture of the siblings' childhoods and present lives, and generations of unrequited love due to familial and religious expectations--coupled with rebels wanting to make those expectations even stronger--is moving, hard to read, very sad, and frightening. The fact that the author himself has chosen to stay in Damascus despite the ongoing civil war makes it more moving.