'A sublime reading experience- delicate, restrained, surpassingly intelligent, uncommonly poised and truly beautiful' Zadie Smith 'The Parisian is a gripping historical novel, a poignant romance, and a revelatory family epoch. Above all, it is a generous gift. There is a kind of joy that can hold not only pleasure, but struggle, and even sadness. This novel tells that kind of joyful story, and evokes that kind of joy in the reader' Jonathan Safran Foer Midhat Kamal navigates his way across a fractured world, from the shifting politics of the Middle East to the dinner tables of Montpellier and a newly tumultuous Paris. He discovers that everything is fragile- love turns to loss, friends become enemies, and everyone is looking for a place to belong. Through Midhat's eyes we see the tangled politics and personal tragedies of a turbulent era - the Palestinian struggle for independence, the strife of the early twentieth century, and the looming shadow of the Second World War. Told in rich and sumptuous detail, The Parisian asks profound questions about cultural identity, politics, love, and how we retain our humanity in a deeply conflicted world. AN OBSERVER HOTLY TIPPED DEBUT NOVELIST OF 2019