Hassan Daoud is one of the Arabic language world's premier novelists, with a good media profile. He is the editor of the cultural supplement in Beirut's daily paper, and his work has appeared in the European and American press as well -- he was published in 2006 in the New York Times Magazine.

Four of Daoud's novels have been translated into English, and this work has been long listed for the Arabic Booker Prize, and The Penguin's Song was hailed as the "Best Arabic Novel of the Year" when it was published in 1998.

This work treats the constricted spaces in which individuals and families live, as both effects of and outcomes of the often violent shifts to the political and social order—and the built landscape—of Beirut and of Lebanon over the past several decades. It will be of interest to those interested in Lebanon's recent history and current climate.

Lebanon is an underserved country in terms of translation, and this work is extremely evocative of a city (Beirut) that is of interest, but largely unfamiliar to many American readers.