What I know about you

What I know about you

Éric Chacour, 1983-

Book - 2024

"A heartbreaking tale of a family and an impossible love, torn apart by secrets and traditions in late-twentieth-century Cairo. In a tight-knit Levantine Christian family in 1960s Cairo, Tarek's entire life is written in advance. He'll be a doctor like his father, marry, and have children. Under the watchful eye of the family's strong women, he starts to do just that - until a patient's son, Ali, enters his life and turns it upside down. The two men's unsayable relationship sparks a series of events as dramatic as the Six-Day War and assassination of President Anwar Sadat playing out in the background. The turn of the millennium finds Tarek living as a doctor in Montreal. Someone is writing about him and to him..., piecing together a past he wants only to forget. But who is the writer of this tale? And will Tarek figure it out in time? From Cairo's grand boulevards and hidden alleys to Montreal's grim winter, from the reign of Nasser to the early 2000s, What I Know About You tells the heartbreaking story of a family torn apart by an epic love. A bestseller in its original Quebec edition, and the recipient of several awards, including the Prix Femina, What I Know About You is poised to be an international sensation."--

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Subjects
Young men > Fiction.
Secrecy > Fiction.
Jeunes hommes > Romans, nouvelles, etc.
Secret > Romans, nouvelles, etc.
Cairo (Egypt) > Fiction.
Montréal (Québec) > Fiction.
Novels.
Romans.
Genres
Novels
Romans
Published
Toronto : Coach House Books 2024.
Language
English
French
Main Author
Éric Chacour, 1983- (author)
Other Authors
Pablo Strauss (translator)
Item Description
Translation of: Ce que je sais de toi.
Physical Description
220 pages ; 22 cm
Issued also in electronic formats
ISBN
9781552454855
Contents unavailable.
Review by Booklist Review

Tarek is an established neurosurgeon who operates a charity clinic in a Cairo slum once a week. There he meets nineteen-year-old Ali, a young sex worker. When a kiss between the two of them leaves Tarek obsessed, he hires Ali to be his assistant at his regular practice. They begin an affair, but when word gets around that Tarek's employing a boy of "dubious virtue," his practice begins to suffer. Alarmed, Tarek's mother secretly pays the boy to pretend to drown in the Nile. Believing the lie, Tarek is devastated and emigrates to Montreal, leaving his estranged wife behind. To this point the story has been told in the second person by an unknown narrator, who is now revealed: it's the teenage son Tarek doesn't know he has. The boy's attempt to meet his father fails when Tarek, back in Cairo for his mother's funeral, learns that Ali's death was a lie and decides to find him. Will Tarek succeed and will Rafik get to meet his father? A splendid exercise in melancholy and heartbreak with highly empathetic characters, Chacour's first novel is beautifully written and superbly translated from the French by Pablo Strauss. It is not to be missed.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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