Alone in the darkness, I turn the world over in my mind, battling yet another bout of insomnia and another sleepless night in the vast American wilderness. This is how Paul Auster, the American novelist and author of the New York Trilogy, begins his brilliant narrative about the many truths that surround us when wars break out around us. August Brill, a seventy-two-year-old, is at his daughter's house in Vermont, recovering from a car accident. When sleep eludes him, he lies on the bed and tells himself stories, trying to ward off the things he prefers to forget: his wife's recent death and the murder of his granddaughter's friend, Titus. The retired book critic imagines a parallel world where America is not at war with Iraq, but rather with itself. In this 'other America,' the famous Twin Towers did not fall, and the United States was torn apart following a bloody civil war! Auster is one of our most cultured and elegant writers. The Washington Post Book World lauds Auster's immense talent in creating fantastical yet believable worlds. San Francisco Chronicle

Publishing house: Dar Al Adab
Number of Pages: 232
Year of publication: 2010