Voices of the Lost
'Barakat isn't writing about 'the immigrant'. She's writing about the human.' Rumaan Alam, author of Leave the World Behind
Shortlisted for the Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Translation * Longlisted for the DUBLIN Literary Award, 2022
Winner of the International Prize for Arabic Fiction, a devastating story of displacement, war, and the unlikely glimmer of hope in the dark
In an unnamed country torn apart by war, six strangers are compelled to share their darkest secrets. Taking pen to paper, each attempts to put in writing what they can’t bring themselves to say to the person they love – mother, father, brother, lost love. Their words form a chain of dark confessions, none of which reaches the intended recipient. But their consequences will ripple through other lives, affecting strangers in ways the writers could never have anticipated...
Luminous and haunting, Voices of the Lost tells the moving story of characters living on the periphery, battling displacement, poverty, and the demons within themselves. From one of today’s most talented Arabic writers, this is the story of lives intimately woven together in a society that is tearing itself apart.
'Hoda Barakat is one of Lebanon's greatest gifts to literature' Amy Bloom, author of White Houses
Hoda Barakat was born in Beirut in 1952. She studied French Literature at the Lebanese University and moved to Paris with her family in 1989. She has published five novels and two plays. Her novels have been translated into several languages and received numerous prestigious prize nominations, including the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature for The Tiller of Waters (2000). In 2015, she was shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize. She currently lives in France.