Original title: Al-mawt ˁamel šāqq
Death is Hard Work (Al-mawt ˁamel šāqq, Beirut 2016) is the fifth novel by the Syrian author Khalid Khalifa (Ḫālid Ḫalīfa, Aleppo 1964) and the first that now can be read in Serbian.
Two of Khalifa’s novels were shortlisted for the International Arabic Novel Award (IPAF) – Arabic Booker, and this one easily won the status of a finalist in the competition for the national literary award given by the National Book Foundation every November. Prominent writer and journalist Eliot Ackermann compared Khalifa to Faulkner, and the novel experienced numerous other positive critical reviews in eminent Anglo-Saxon media.
The main plot of the novel Death is Hard Work takes place in the winter of the fourth year of the civil war in Syria. Three middle-aged siblings transport the body of their dead father from Damascus to bury him in his native village near Aleppo and thus carry out his last will. Instead of crossing those 400 km in a few hours, they travel for a few days in the given circumstances and barely manage to save not only their father’s body but also their own lives. The frightening experiences on the road are just a tragic framework for a novelistic treatment of a failed search for personal identity.
Translation is completely equiped with footnotes, endnotes and an afterword.
Pages: 213
IK „Clio“, Beograd 2021
