Gli scali del Levante

Having arrived in Paris for a long-awaited meeting, the elderly Ossyan looks back on his life and, like a modern One Thousand and One Nights, entrusts a mysterious listener with the tale of his adventures. Raised in Beirut as the last descendant of a noble Ottoman family, he was educated with a liberal spirit and an intolerance for racial prejudice. Ossyan moves to France for his studies where, during the heroic struggle to liberate the country from the Nazis, he meets Clara, a Jewish woman with whom he falls deeply in love. Together, he decides to live out his own personal revolution: a Muslim man, he marries a Jewish girl just as the entire world seems resigned to seeing violence divide the two cultures forever. The chances of life and the course of history will put their choice to the ultimate test: deprived of a future together and of the simplest joys, what remains for them? A love suspended, a quiet love, but perhaps one more powerful than history itself.

Author: Amin Maalouf (أَمِين مَعْلُوف)

He is a world-renowned Lebanese-born French author and a member of the Académie Française. Known for his deep historical insights and elegant prose, his work often explores themes of identity, civilization, and the intersections of East and West.