DOHA: Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing (BQFP) has released June Rain, a novel by Lebanese author Jabbour Douaihy shortlisted for International Prize for Arabic Fiction.
Translated from the Arabic by Paula Haydar, June Rain is Douaihy’s fictionalised account of a historic event in Lebanon which offers a compelling narrative of separation, loss, fear and war and difficulties of ordinary people caught in the middle of a polarising feud.
A massacre takes place in a village church in northern Lebanon, leaving two dozen people dead.
In the aftermath of the massacre, the town is divided in two: Al Ramis in the north and their rivals Al Semaanis in the south.
Neighbours turn into enemies and husbands and wives are forced to choose between loyalty to each other and loyalty to their clan.
What follows is the utter destruction of that which binds a community, and the trauma that stains an entire generation.
At the centre of the masterful novel is Eliyya, who, 20 years after emigrating to the US, returns to the village to learn about his father who was shot through the heart in the massacre, the father he never knew.
Douaihy was born in 1949 in Zgharta, Lebanon. He is a professor of French literature at Lebanese University in Beirut and has published several and short story collections.
The Peninsula
