The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother): A Novel (National Book Award Winner)

Winner of the National Book Award, this novel by Rabih Alameddine is set in a small Beirut apartment where sixty-three-year-old Raja, a high school philosophy teacher, lives with his octogenarian mother, Zalfa. Raja values privacy, books, and solitude, while his mother demands to know every detail of his life, viewing his desire for boundaries as a personal offense. When Raja receives an invitation to a fully funded writing residency in America, it arrives at a moment when he is seeking escape from personal and national disasters, as well as from his mother and the pain of Lebanon. However, the residency becomes an opportunity for Raja to confront and relive the very hardships and betrayals he hoped to leave behind. Narrated in Raja's voice across six decades, the novel explores a singular life marked by absurdities, mistakes, self-discovery, and trauma. It examines the unbreakable bond between mother and son, family, and memory.