Next Monday, February 4, the 92nd Street Y hosts an event featuring Chris Abani and Elias Khoury, both of whose latest books focus on the horrors of war as experienced by children.
I’m giving away five pairs of tickets to the event. To enter, email me at maudnewton [at] gmail [dot] com by noon (Eastern Time) on February 1, with “Abani-Khoury giveaway†in the subject line. All entries will be assigned numbers based on the order received, and a randomizer will choose the winners.
Earlier this month, Laila Lalami reviewed Khoury’s Yalo for the LA Times. The novel, she says, “is composed of confessions — whether forced or voluntary, true or laced with self-aggrandizement, redemptive for the confessor or entirely useless.” It “establishes Khoury as the sort of novelist whose name is inseparable from a city. Los Angeles has Joan Didion and Raymond Chandler, and Istanbul, Orhan Pamuk. The beautiful, resilient city of Beirut belongs to Khoury.”
Abani’s Song for Night has garnered widespread praise. “Not since Jerzy Kosinski’s The Painted Bird or Agota Kristof’s Notebook Trilogy has there been such a harrowing novel about what it’s like to be a young person in a war,” Rebecca Brown has said. And in the New York Times Book Review, Maud Casey admires the lyric joy of Song for Night, and says the “density and swiftness of the [novella] form suit Abani’s story.”