What I Know about You -- ?ric Chacour, Paperback

WINNER OF THE 2023 PRIX PREMI?RE PLUME
WINNER OF THE 2024 PRIX DES CINQ CONTINENTS

A heartbreaking tale of a family and an impossible love, torn apart by secrets and traditions in late-twentieth-century Cairo.

In a tight-knit Levantine Christian family in 1960s Cairo, Tarek's entire life is written in advance. He'll be a doctor like his father, marry, and have children. Under the watchful eye of the family's strong women, he starts to do just that - until a patient's son, Ali, enters his life and turns it upside down. The two men's unsayable relationship sparks a series of events as dramatic as the Six-Day War and assassination of President Anwar Sadat playing out in the background.

The turn of the millennium finds Tarek living as a doctor in Montreal. Someone is writing about him and to him, piecing together a past he wants only to forget. But who is the writer of this tale? And will Tarek figure it out in time?

From Cairo's grand boulevards and hidden alleys to Montreal's grim winter, from the reign of Nasser to the early 2000s, What I Know About You tells the heartbreaking story of a family torn apart by an epic love.

A bestseller in its original French edition, and the recipient of several awards, including the Prix Femina, What I Know About You is poised to be an international sensation.

"This novel is a searing love story that moves between Egypt and Montr?al, that shifts between hearts, highlighting the sacrifices the characters feel they have to make for the ones they love. Romantic, surprising, mesmerizing, and so devastating, What I Know About You examines the terrible costs of family secrets and toxic shame." - Suzette Mayr, author of The Sleeping Car Porter

Author: Éric Chacour
Publisher: Coach House Books
Published: 09/24/2024
Pages: 232
Binding Type: Paperback
ISBN: 9781552454855

Review Citation(s):
Booklist 07/01/2024 pg. 28

About the Author

Born in Montreal to Egyptian parents, Éric Chacour shared his life between France and Quebec. A graduate in applied economics and international relations, he now works in the financial sector. What I Know About You is his first novel.

Pablo Strauss is the translator of twelve works of fiction, several graphic novels, and the screenplay of one feature film, White Dog (2022). He is a three-time finalist for the Governor General's Literary Award for translation for The Country Will Bring Us No Peace (Coach House Books, 2020), Synapses (Talonbooks, 2019), and The Longest Year (House of Anansi, 2017). The Dishwasher, his translation of Stéphane Larue's Le plongeur, won the 2020 Amazon Canada First Novel Award. He has published essays, reviews, and translations in Granta, Geist, The Literary Review of Canada, The Globe and Mail and The Montreal Review of Books. Pablo grew up in Victoria, BC, and has made his home in Quebec City for fifteen years.