TMR Book Club Discusses Khaled Khalifa's "No One Prayed Over Their Graves"

The Markaz Review is a unique literary arts journal on the Middle East and North Africa. We embrace fine writing and a profound respect for freedom of expression. We publish a new theme issue on the ideas of the month as well as fresh columns and reviews every week. TMR is a nonprofit, reader-supported platform with no advertising of any kind.

The Markaz Review

TMR Book Club discusses Khaled Khalifa's novel "No One Prayed Over Their Graves" on October 29th at 2pm EST/7pm CET. All welcome!

Arts & Culture of the Middle East

The Markaz Review hosts periodic public programs featuring authors, artists, filmmakers and other creatives in conversation.

On a December morning in 1907, two close friends, Hanna and Zakariya, return to their village near Aleppo after a night of drunken carousing in the city, only to discover that there has been a massive flood. Their neighbors, families, children—nearly all of them are dead. Their homes, shops, and places of worship are leveled. Their lives will never be the same.Hanna was once a wealthy libertine, a landowner who built a famed citadel devoted to the pursuit of pleasure and excess. But with the loss of his home, wife, and community, he transforms, becoming an ascetic mystic obsessed with death and the meaning of life. In No One Prayed Over Their Graves, we follow Hanna’s life before and after the flood, tracing friendships, loves and lusts, family and business, until he is just one thread in the rich tapestry of Aleppo.Khaled Khalifa weaves a sweeping tale of life and death in the hubbub of Aleppine society at the turn of the twentieth century. No One Prayed Over Their Graves is a portrait of a people on the verge of great change—from provincial villages to the burgeoning modernity of the city, where Christians, Muslims, and Jews live and work together, united in their love for Aleppo and their dreams for the future.Published by MacMillan in the US and Faber in the UK. We meet to discuss the book on Sunday, Oct. 29 at 2 pm Eastern/19:00 CET. This event has been organized in collaboration with Afikra.

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