Linguistically dexterous, scintillating with intelligence and wit, and balancing incisive observation with deep compassion, the short fictions in draw us into the lives of characters we feel completely involved with. Here we have a hall of mirrors in which the writer mines his soul for images that reflect the story. But in interrogating the self, what Omar Sabbagh produces is an engaging array of unique perspectives on all our souls. If, as Sabbagh writes, writing is always a performance and projection of a self, then is the performance of a self breath-takingly prodigious and heterodox. That Sabbagh is able to weave this self into characters whose tussles leap off the page so compellingly shows a master at work. - Peter Salmon, author of  hold the Hanging Gardens of Babylon teleported into the tired aridity of a postmodern mind. The lushness of Sabbagh's characters and settings is nurtured with such loving drip-irrigation precision that you'll find yourself enamored with both his beauties and his beasts. - Svetlana Lavochkina, novelist, poet, translator Intelligent and passionate, these stories are singularities that make all the difference. Sabbagh seems to be, as he describes one of his characters, 'an inexorably-thinking man', but there is a certain rawness and playfulness to the stories which makes the philosophical grounding often quite hilarious. Sabbagh is also a unique chronicler of the Middle East and globalization. - Adnan Mahmutovic, author of