Description: "In this achingly beautiful novel of trauma, memory, and identity, two Iraqi men struggle to start a new life in the US after the Gulf War. Sami, a retired doctor, lives with his son and grandchildren in Brooklyn. As he tries to navigate this new city, it becomes increasingly clear he is losing his memory due to dementia. Every day he sinks deeper into old memories of a life in Iraq before the war. Omar arrived in the US with no family. He has run away from Iraq with a fake identity. As a deserter, he was punished by having an ear cut off. In Baghdad, this is an unmissable mark of shame. Omar works menial jobs, creates a new identity-comically passing as Puerto Rican-and dreams of reconstructive surgery to get his ear, and his dignity, back. Their stories converge powerfully when it becomes clear they were connected in Iraq at a moment that was pivotal for them both. Deftly exploring the aftermath of war and relocation, Of Loss and Lavender creates a moving portrait of life in exile"-- Provided by publisher.
Review Quotes: "A work of translation in every sense, as it seeks to convey, often through metaphor, the incomparable experience of exile." --The New Yorker, The Best Books of the Year So Far
"Ravishing, heartbreaking, and often absurd, Of Loss and Lavender is a novel on exile in all its meanings, panoramic in implications but distilled down like a fine elixir. I adored it." --Molly Crabapple, author of Here Where We Live Is Our Country "From one of Iraq's finest writers, a tender, audacious novel that traces the long afterlife of war and the quiet, reparative power of listening." --Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi, author of Call Me Zebra and Savage Tongues "Of Loss and Lavender is a haunting story of two men--one desperate to remember, the other to forget. In exploring the cost of erasing one's past, Antoon reveals the deep fractures of exile and identity. Moving between Iraq and the United States--two worlds bound by history since 2003--this novel marks a bold new chapter in Antoon's work. With his gift for creating unforgettable, layered characters, Antoon leaves readers with echoes that linger long after the final page." --Hassan Abdulrazzak, British-Iraqi playwright and fellow of the Royal Society of Literature "Sinan Antoon's Of Loss and Lavender is an unexpectedly soulful novel that deepens the more you stay with it. The book's two protagonists are traumatized, walled-off, and imperfect men, but one of Antoon's victories is how he makes us want to spend time with them, understand them, and even root them on. If most novels close down as you finish them, this one never stops opening up. Of Loss and Lavender expands into the past of trauma and the possible future of love, between nations, languages, and into the hidden conflicts inside a diaspora. One can think of few other novels that depict the disorientation, buried pasts, and surrealism of migration into an America seen as it truly is." --Ken Chen, author of Juvenilia