"A collection of short stories and 'veiled memoirs' that explore the chiaroscuro of a troubled life. From the leafy enclaves of Wimbledon to the 'intelligent chaos' of Beirut's Hamra district, Omar Sabbagh weaves a tapestry of 'crap decisions,' spiritual pride, and the somatic pleasure of the English language.".

"Sabbagh is that rare type of philosophically-minded writer whose prose has a big heart. In a time when we prefer to read less and read light, his stories ask us to dwell, to slow down, and to reread. This is where we will find both enjoyment and depth."

Adnan Mahmutovic, author of At the Feet of Mothers (Cinnamon Press, 2020)

"They say suffering runs through life like water. Omar Sabbagh is no stranger to it, but turns it into a wellspring for his fiction. We are invited to drink, but this is not bitter water, but a way to refresh ourselves and our thinking."

Peter Salmon, author of An Event, Perhaps: A Biography of Jacques Derrida (Verso, 2020)

"Omar Sabbagh is that rare thing: a 21st-century man of letters. Unattached to either a politicized identity or a stylistic program, his sprawling, personal narratives are less interested in the literary zeitgeist than in the cadence of a phrase, the shape of a sentence, the sheer delight of the English language. They speak eloquently of people and things-the world as it is-but to read them is to lose yourself in the wondrous vagaries of literature, just as it should be."

Youssef Rakha, author of The Dissenters

(Graywolf Press, 2025)