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Hoda Barakat. The Stone of Laughter. Sophie Bennett, tr. Reading, Eng. Garnet. 1994. viii + 231 pages. L8.95. ISBN 1-85964-018-4
Hoda Barakat is a Lebanese writer whose first collection of short stories, Za'irat (Visitors), was published in 1985. The novel under review first appeared in Arabic in 1990 and won a prestigious Arab literary prize, the al-Naqid Award for a first novel.
The Stone of Laughter is set in Beirut against a backdrop of the civil war that ravaged Lebanon beginning in the mid-1970s and has only recently abated. It explores the theme of the civil war and its impact on the beleaguered populace of Beirut. The novel is structured around the tension within Khalil, an androgynous young man who is torn between his desires...