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A heart-wrenching love story between two young Palestinian men in a land swept by sandstorms, burdened by occupation, and haunted by spirits.
In the labyrinthine city of Jerusalem, where poets woo their lovers with tales of jinns, lions, and warriors, Isaac and Gabriel pass in the streets, unaware of one another until a fifty-day wind brings enough sand to blot out the heavens. From their first meeting, desire blooms, hesitates, withdraws, and returns in a heady romance recounted by the sky itself, who cranes past rooftops and through windows to glimpse the pair. Defying checkpoints, desert squalls, and blazing heat, Gabriel and Isaac embark on a road trip through Jericho and past the Dead Sea to a storied village in the West Bank—a daring act in a divided country.
Lyrical and languorous, shattering and profound, Eden at Dawn is a feast of love in the midst of war. With this North American debut, lauded author Karim Kattan proves that storytelling is the ultimate act of devotion.
“Karim Kattan’s Eden at Dawn is an unforgettable love story, sensuous and otherworldly. Tracing a queer love between two men in Palestine, Kattan’s prose pulses with poetry and strangeness, exploring new dimensions to love and longing. Politically astute and mythic in scope, Kattan’s language transforms the landscape of desire into something luminous and enduring.”
— Saleem Haddad, author of Floodlines and Guapa
“Karim Kattan’s Eden at Dawn is a queer Palestinian love story that is breathtaking and refreshingly original, blending vivid poetics and gorgeous prose. It is the story of our times, wonderfully translated from French by Jeffrey Zuckerman. This is such an essential read.”
— Hasan Namir, author of God in Pink
“Kattan’s prose unfurls poetically as a prayer to the heart of Palestine—love told as an act of defiance and spellbound by the sands of the Khamaseen. This is Kattan’s haunting rebellion; an incantation against our cruel and violent humanity.”
— Mohammed Massoud Morsi, author of The Hair of the Pigeon
“A rare gem of a story — bittersweet, luminous, and intimate enough to feel like someone is whispering secrets in your ear.”
— Angelo Tijssens, author of The Edges
“Karim Kattan plows his way into the literary world with novels with magnetic writing that take you far away, into a universe that is both sensual and political, of stunning beauty.”
— Alexandra Schwartzbrod, Libération
“Karim Kattan accomplishes, with this magnificent second novel, the most powerful act of which literature is capable: affirming the full and complete humanity of those to whom the world only grants a partial and conditional humanity.”
— Joy Majdalani, L'Orient-Le Jour
“Eden at Dawn, the first major homosexual work set in occupied territory, is a powerful rebuttal to prejudices about Palestine.”
— Jean Stern, Orient XXI
“A real and imagined Palestine, with its flowers, its pines, and the gentleness of its Mediterranean landscapes, offers a setting that is both sunny and terribly menacing and threatened. This is Kattan's way of keeping it alive and engaging.”
— Fifi Abou Dib, L’Orient littéraire
“A very beautiful, very sensitive book.”
— Nicolas Herbeaux, France Culture
“The writer-poet lets himself experiment and plays on the lyre string until it cracks and pierces the eardrums.”
— Cécile Dutheil de la Rochère, En attendant Nadeau
“Everything is true, even what is false. The novel, poetry, literature: that's what we're talking about here, and all at the same time.”
— Baptiste Thery-Guilbert, Diacritik
“A highly poetic, raw novel, full of the vitality of irony and orality, which makes tangible the glaring opposition between love and desire on the one hand, and violence and hatred on the other.”
— Kenza Sefrioui, Enass
“A magnificent novel.”
— Doan Bui, Bibliobs
“A sensual, lyrical, and unadorned language.”
— Faris Mounis, ActuaLitté