De Niro's Game

"De Niro's Game chronicles the madness of the Beirut civil war with dark humour and beautifully manicured urgency... Creates images that explode in the reader's imagination like ten thousand bombs" (Atom Egoyan)

Bassam and George are childhood best friends who have grown to adulthood in war-torn Beirut, Lebanon. Now they must choose their futures: to stay in the city and amass power by joining the corrupt militia; or to become exiles abroad, alienated from the only existence they have ever known. Bassam chooses one path: obsessed with leaving Beirut, he embarks on a series of petty crimes to finance his departure. Meanwhile, George builds his status in the militia-ruled underworld of the city, and embraces a life of killing, crime for profit, and drugs. Eventually and inevitably, the fates of the two friends collide.

Told in the voice of Bassam, 'De Niro's Game' is a beautiful, explosive portrait of contemporary young men shaped by a lifelong experience of war. Rawi Hage brilliantly fuses vivid, jump-cut cinematic action with the measured strength and beauty of Arabic poetry. His style mimics a world gone mad: so smooth and apparently sane that its sudden, razor-sharp dips into chaos and violence surprise and cut deeply.

Here is an astonishing, brilliantly paced look at life and death in a war zone, and what comes after.