Roundabout of Death

Name: Roundabout of Death
Brand: Dreamscape Media
Availability: InStock
Author: Faysal Khartash
ISBN: 9781666520927

Author: Faysal Khartash, Max Weiss

Narrator: Qarie Marshall

Unabridged: 4 hr 19 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Dreamscape Media

Published: 10/05/2021

Categories: Fiction, Military Fiction, Literary Fiction

Synopsis

Set in Aleppo in 2012, when everyday life was metronomically punctuated by bombing, Roundabout of Death offers powerful witness to the violence that obliterated the ancient city's rich layers of history, its neighborhoods and medieval and Ottoman landmarks. The novel is told from the perspective of an ordinary man, a schoolteacher of Arabic for whom even daily errands become life-threatening tasks. He experiences the wide-scale destruction wrought upon the monumental Syrian metropolis as it became the stage for a vicious struggle between warring powers. Death hovers ever closer while the teacher roams Aleppo’s streets and byways, minutely observing the perils of urban life in an uncanny twist on Baudelaire's flâneur. The novel, a literary edifice erected as an unflinching response to the erasure of a once great city, speaks eloquently of the fragmentation of human existence and the calamities of war.

About Faysal Khartash

Faysal Khartash is a leading Syrian author. He lives in his native Aleppo, has written several novels, and works as a schoolteacher while also contributing to Syrian newspapers.

About Max Weiss

Max Weiss teaches the history of the modern Middle East at Princeton University. He has translated books by Nihad Sirees, Dunya Mikhail, and Samar Yazbek.

About Qarie Marshall

Qarie Marshall has narrated over thirty series for the Discovery Channel and the BBC. He has also been a guest voice on Comedy Central's Drawn Together and has recorded BBC radio plays, the in-flight programming for Virgin Atlantic Airlines, over eighty video games for the PlayStation and Xbox, and numerous audiobooks. In 2007, he was made an Associate Artist of The Purple Rose Theatre.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Chiara on May 12, 2021

What is daily life like in war-torn Aleppo, Syria’s most important economic center partitioned and divided between governmental forces and rebels? Especially if you are an ordinary man with no fervent political credo that tries to navigate the present and stay alive. You are a teacher but wake up at......more

Goodreads review by John on August 29, 2021

This novel may be more of a fictional autobiography than a novel as the main character in the book is a teacher and writer who lives in Aleppo, Syria, just like the author. The chapters in this short book tell of the main character went about his daily life in Aleppo in 2012 with bombardments taking......more

Goodreads review by Jordan on September 12, 2022

“Roundabout of Death” refers to a particularly violent area in the center of Aleppo, a once vibrant city in civil war-torn Syria where the school-teacher narrator of this story documents several chaotic days in his life. there are some really impactful moments in this book (the son’s imprisonment, t......more

Goodreads review by Bec on January 18, 2025

"The city was divided in half, and those two halves never intersected,"......more