Al-Mawt Amal Shaq, (Death is Hard Work), by: Khaled Khalifa, (Dar El-Ain – Cairo), 2016. 160pp.

Renowned Syrian writer and novelist Khaled Khalifa, winner of the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature, released the second edition of his latest novel Al-Mawt Amal Shaq (Death is Hard Work) from Al-Ain Publishing house in Cairo. The novel was first published in January 2016.

Taking Syria as its playground that the author never left, Khaled Khalifa takes the readers to the heart of the torn country. It is about a family making its way to Damascus in a car with a dead body inside it, and a vicious war outside, a war that is still thirsty for more death after leaving hundreds of thousands dead.

Khalifa describes the Syrian reality through this family and the characters of his novel as the family crosses many checkpoints on their way to bury the father in his village, as every Syrian family does that has to live through this war.

Khaled Khalifa, born in Aleppo in 1964, is a very well-known Syrian novelist and is most renowned for his novel Fi Madih Al-Karahya (In Praise of Hatred), one of only four Arab novels included on the website List Muse's best 100 novels of all time. He was awarded the 2013 Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature for his novel La Sakakin fi Matabekh Hazehi Al-Madina (No Knives in this City's Kitchens).