The Thirty Names of the Night

A young queer of Syrian origin living in New York, the main character of Thirty Names of the Night tries to find his place within a community that does not understand him. Badly in his body, he lives recluse with his sick grandmother, whom he takes care of with tenderness. He only feels truly free when slipping away into the streets of Little Syria, a Manhattan district now supplanted by the world of finance, where he creates frescoes of birds. One night, the corners of an abandoned building give him a notebook that will turn his life upside down. This is the diary of Laila Z, a Syrian artist emigrated to the United States who devoted her career to painting the birds of North America. Over the pages, the narrator discovers how much Laila Z's past is intimately linked to that of her family, in particular to that of her mother, an ornithologist, who died five years earlier in a suspicious fire... Translated from English (United States) by Nino S. Dufour "A novel like a multi-faceted jewel, where each facet shines in its own way... This incredibly courageous novel, full of suspense and revelations, reminds us of the dignity we all deserve and the suffering of those who still feel the need to hide. » The Washington Post