Aaliya Saleh lives alone in her Beirut apartment, surrounded by stockpiles of books. Godless, fatherless, childless, & divorced, Aaliya is her family`s `unnecessary appendage`. Every year, she translates a new favourite book into Arabic, then stows it away. The thirty-seven books that Aaliya has translated over her lifetime have never been read
- by anyone. This breathtaking portrait of a reclusive woman follows Aaliya`s digressive mind as it ricochets across visions of past & present Beirut. Colourful musings on literature, philosophy, & art are invaded by memories of the Lebanese Civil War & Aaliya`s own volatile past. As she tries to overcome her ageing body & spontaneous emotional upwellings, Aaliya is faced with an unthinkable disaster that threatens to shatter the little life she has left. A love letter to literature & its power to define who we are, the prodigiously gifted Rabih Alameddine has given us a magnificent rendering of one woman`s life in the Middle East.