“Like all cities, Beirut has many layers, and I had been familiar with one or two. What I was introduced to that day with Ali and Kamal was the Beirut of its people. You take different groups, put them on top of each other, simmer for a thousand years, keep adding more and more strange tribes, simmer for another few thousand years, salt and pepper with religion, and what you get is a delightful mess of a stew that still tastes delectable and exotic, no matter how many times you partake of it.”

Lebanese painter and writer

Rabih Alameddine is a Lebanese painter and writer known for his novels and essays. His work has received major recognition, including the 2022 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and the 2025 National Book Award for Fiction. He is best known as a novelist, with The Wrong End of the Telescope winning the PEN/Faulkner Award and The True True Story of Raja the Gullible taking the National Book Award. As a writer and painter, he is associated with literary work that has earned broad critical attention.