Briefly Noted Book Reviews

"This novel of exile and memory chronicles the life of Sufien, a Palestinian man displaced as a child by the Nakba, whose story unfolds across continents and encompasses entanglements with a broad range of characters."

"Assadi traces the full arc of Sufien's life as he moves from Palestine to a refugee camp in Syria, then to Italy and the U.S. He deepens and matures, reflecting often on his course, but this is not a fawning portrait of a hero's journey so much as a study of a flawed individual."

"Two men loom over this hybrid novel: the author's father, Denis, a self-fashioned "academic-businessman," and her grandfather, Georges, an influential cultural official who, being Jewish, lost his position and his influence during the Nazi occupation of France."

"A composite of memoir and fictionalized family history, Huisman's book reckons with the influence of her male forebears-both possessed of grand self-conceptions, both flagrantly unfaithful to their wives-continuing a project that she began with an earlier book of a similar kind about her mother."

Paradiso 17 follows Sufien, a Palestinian man displaced as a child by the Nakba, as his life unfolds from Palestine to a refugee camp in Syria, then to Italy and the U.S. The narrative spans continents and includes entanglements with many characters, while Sufien reflects on his own course and matures over time. The story resists a simple hero’s journey by presenting a flawed individual rather than offering a flattering portrait. The Monuments of Paris blends memoir and fictionalized family history through two central male figures: a self-fashioned academic-businessman father and a cultural official grandfather who lost position during Nazi occupation due to being Jewish. The work examines how grand self-conceptions and infidelity shape emotional inheritance.

Read at The New Yorker