Aaliya Saleh lives alone in her Beirut apartment, surrounded by stockpiles of books.
A love letter to literature and its power to define who we are, the prodigiously gifted Rabih Alameddine has given us a magnificent rendering of one woman's life in the Middle East..
As she tries to overcome her ageing body and spontaneous emotional upwellings, Aaliya is faced with an unthinkable disaster that threatens to shatter the little life she has left.
Colourful musings on literature, philosophy, and art are invaded by memories of the Lebanese Civil War and Aaliya's own volatile past.
This breathtaking portrait of a reclusive Woman follows Aaliya's digressive mind as it ricochets across visions of past and present Beirut.
The thirty-seven books that Aaliya has translated over her lifetime have never been read - by anyone.
Every year, she translates a new favourite book into Arabic, then stows it away.
Godless, fatherless, childless, and divorced, Aaliya is her family's 'Unnecessary appendage'.
Aaliya Saleh lives alone in her Beirut apartment, surrounded by stockpiles of books
