The Journey of Little Gandhi

by Elias Khoury

Book Overview

Los Angeles has Joan Didion and Raymond Chandler, and Istanbul, Orhan Pamuk. The beautiful, resilient city of Beirut belongs to Khoury.--Laila Lalami, Los Angeles Times From the author of Gate of the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0816619956
• ISBN13: 9780816619955
• Release Date: February 1994
• Publisher: University of Minnesota Press
• Length: 194 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.5" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

The Journey of Little Gandhi

Certain authors can rightfully be said to own the cities where they set their stories: Dickens his Victorian London, Pamuk his Istanbul, Mahfouz Cairo. So it is with Elias Khoury and his beloved Beirut. For those unfamiliar with his work, //The Journey of Little Gandhi// makes plain both his literary gifts and the origin of his deed; reading his lithe prose, you can almost see the map of that ancient, complex city on every page. The novel follows a shoe shiner and entrepreneur, nicknamed "Little Gandhi," along with his family, his friends, and rivals. Some readers unfamiliar with Arabic fiction may feel a touch of vertigo as the novel begins. The structure, while in many ways traditional, can feel almost post-modern as the plot flows in vast concentric circles, narrowing with each loop, tales nesting within tales, revealing details with each rotation. Yet, Khoury is nothing if not a master storyteller and he has no interest in losing his audience. Slowly, inexorably, he guides the reader forward, as if by bewitching magic. Through his protagonist we feel the decline of Beirut into chaos and civil war, sharing the pain of both the author and his characters. REviewed by Jordan Magill