• Lead title for Spring 2020 • Amin Maalouf was a journalist in Lebanon until the civil war in 1975, when he left for Paris with his family. He became a novelist whose historical characters span cultures and continents. His work has been translated into 40 languages. • Maalouf is the author of several bestselling titles in the US, including The Crusades Through Arab Eyes, which sold 26,870 copies here. • His last work of fiction, Balthasar's Odyssey, was written in 2000 and The Disoriented is his long-awaited new novel • In The Disoriented, Adam travels from France to his homeland to bid farewell to his dying childhood friend after 25 years of exile. An insurmountable grudge between the two friends stands in for the unresolved trauma of political violence experienced in the Lebanese War. • The title The Disoriented is a direct reference to the loss of orientation and an implicit reference to the loss of the Orient. • The book is especially timely given the current political climate and global pushback on migration. In a recent interview with The Daily Star, Maalouf was asked if he feels disoriented, and answers: “Yes, certainly … When I see the relationships between human beings, the questions of identity, the relations between different cultures, the evolution of the political world and of democracy, all this makes me feel sorry – not only in the region, but in the whole world. I am really worried and very disillusioned about a lot of things.”