When asked what he thought the most important quality a writer should posses, Rawi Hage is reputed to have replied, “Luck”! Luck was not a factor in his winning the International Dublin IMPAC Literary Award 2008, but the brilliance of his first novel, De Niro’s Game , a powerful, stark yet lyrical and compassionate book.
In this remarkable novel, however, luck is a central element. The title refers to the game of chance – to the death-defying game of Russian Roulette played by DeNiro in the film The Deer Hunter. Hage’s characters find themselves in a very different yet equally extreme situation – caught in the civil war raging in Beirut in the 1980’s. Hage’s writing allows the reader a shocking intimacy with the personal impact of such conflicts. Through the fate of his anti-heroes, George and Bassam, he shows how war can envelope lives – how one doesn’t have a choice in such situations. Concepts of guilt and innocence are left to flounder in the hail of bombs and the struggle for survival. Life itself becomes a game with no real winners, only scarred survivors whose estrangement is deeper than any bullet wound, and whose future seems darker than their blacked out city.
De Niro’s Game is also a compassionate novel of friendship and betrayal, of love and loss. The war-torn city of Beirut plays host to the bravura of the young men- a city full of marauding militia, cleverly compared with the mad dogs that also haunt its precincts – a city that gradually drags its inhabitants into the blood-red sands of extreme situations and heart-breaking betrayal.
En-route Hage employs an almost filmic prose style, a truly imagistic style that is both immediate and exciting, This produces a page-turning tour de force as the narrator, Bassam, dodges ten thousand bombs, enjoys ten thousand kisses, and eventually moves ten thousand miles from any sense of security or home.
In recounting Bassam’s struggle to escape Hage offers an explosive plot that is also effective as a meditation on war and its psychological cost. There is no easy resolution, no redemptive ending in this visceral account. There is, however, an uplifting and original lyricism to the writing, one where Hage’s imaginative flair fuses the present horror into passages of poetic intensity, The cadences of the Old Testament are there, as are angry Ginsbergian litanies as well as strong European echoes, especially of Camus’ The Outsider. Remarkably, a dark but rich sense of humour also surfaces in the narrator’s self-deprecating reflections.
This is a magnificent achievement for a writer writing in a third language. Luck has nothing to do with this novel’s selection. Its originality, its power, its lyricism, as well as its humane appeal all mark De Niro’s Game as the work of a major literary talent and make Rawi Hage a truly deserving winner.
Judges: Helon Habila, Eibhlín Evans, Aamer Hussein, José Luis de Juan, Patricia Dunckler. Non-voting Chair, Judge Eugene R. Sullivan
About the Book
There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide.
In Rawi Hage’s astonishing and unforgettable novel, this famous quote by Camus becomes a touchstone for two young men caught in Lebanon’s civil war. Bassam and George are childhood best friends who have grown to adulthood in wartorn Beirut. Now they must choose their futures: to stay in the city and consolidate power through crime; or to go into exile abroad, alienated from the only existence they have known. Bassam chooses one path: Obsessed with leaving Beirut, he embarks on a series of petty crimes to finance his departure. Meanwhile, George builds his power in the underworld of the city and embraces a life of military service, crime for profit, killing, and drugs.
Told in the voice of Bassam, De Niro’s Game is a beautiful, explosive portrait of a contemporary young man shaped by a lifelong experience of war.
Rawi Hage brilliantly fuses vivid, jump-cut cinematic imagery with the measured strength and beauty of Arabic poetry. His style mimics a world gone mad: so smooth and apparently sane that its razor-sharp edges surprise and cut deeply. A powerful meditation on life and death in a war zone, and what comes after.
(From Publisher)
About the Author
Rawi Hage was born in Beirut, Lebanon, and lived through nine years of the
Lebanese civil war. He immigrated to Canada in 1992.
He is a writer, a visual artist, and a curator. His writings have appeared in Fuse Magazine, Mizna, Jouvert, The Toronto Review, Montreal Serai, and Al-Jadid. His visual works have been shown in galleries and museums around the world. Rawi Hage is the recipient of grants from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec. He resides in Montreal.
Librarian’s Comments
This is a timely novel. Hage’s style and vivid imagery powerfully convey the brutality of war and its dehumanizing effects.
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