Rabih Alameddine

Over the course of a night in the waiting room of a psychiatric clinic, The Angel of History follows the Yemeni-born poet Jacob as he recalls his past – his early childhood spent with his mother in an Egyptian brothel, his adolescence under the patronage of his wealthy father, and everything he experienced as a gay Arab in San Francisco at the height of the AIDS epidemic. Over him hovers the presence of the impudent Satan, who with caustic remarks forces Jacob to recall his painful past, and the gloomy icy Death, who urges him to forget and give up on life… but Jacob is also watched over by fourteen saints. From Cairo and Beirut to Sana’a and Stockholm to San Francisco, Alameddine delivers a provocative philosophical portrait of a brilliant mind in crisis.