Song for the Missing

CBC Books | Posted: November 23, 2022 4:39 PM | Last Updated: November 25, 2022

Pierre Jarawan

Image | BOOK COVER: Song for the Missing

(World Editions)

It's 2011 and the Arab Spring is in full bloom when the discovery of two bodies in Beirut sows the first seeds of unrest in Lebanon. With houses already burning, Amin sets out to write down his memories of the country: Of the year 1994, when he returned as a teenager with his grandmother, twelve years after his parents' deaths.

Of his friendship with Jafar, the boy who explored the desolate postwar landscape with him. And of the painful discovery that there will never be certainty — neither about his friend's past nor his family's history.

In this novel full of mystery and suspense, friendship and loss, searches and secrets, Jarawan skillfully interweaves a deeply personal story with the tumultuous history of the Middle East. (From World Editions)

Pierre Jarawan is a German Lebanese writer.

Interviews with Pierre Jarawan

Media Audio | Writers and Company : Pierre Jarawan probes Lebanon’s troubled past in his affecting new novel, Song for the Missing

Caption: Lebanese German writer Pierre Jarawan made a stunning debut with his compelling novel, The Storyteller. Hailed as "a love letter to Lebanon," it became an international bestseller and earned him the title "Literature Star of the Year." His latest novel, Song for the Missing, is also set in Lebanon. Haunting and poetic, moving through different decades, it explores the lasting trauma from the country's 15-year civil war. Pierre Jarawan spoke to Eleanor Wachtel onstage last month at the Vancouver Writers Fest.

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Song for the Missing

Interviews with Pierre Jarawan

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