One of Beirut's most celebrated voices follows his international bestseller, THE HAKAWATI, with a heart-rending novel that celebrates the singular life of an obsessive introvert, revealing Beirut's beauties and horrors along the way. Aaliya Sohbi lives alone in her Beirut apartment, surrounded by stockpiles of books. Godless, fatherless, divorced, and childless, Aaliya is her family's "unnecessary appendage." Every year, she translates a new favourite book into Arabic, then stows it away. The 37 books that Aaliya has translated have never been read-by anyone. After overhearing her neighbours, "the three witches," discussing her too-white hair, Aaliya accidentally dyes her hair too-blue.