WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD Finalist for the Aspen Words Literary Prize - One of TIME Magazine's 100 Must-Read Books of 2025 - One of NPR's Books We Love of 2025 - One of the Washington Post's 10 Best Audiobooks of 2025 - One of the Washington Independent Review of Books's Favorite Books of 2025 - One of the Globe and Mail's 100 Best Books of 2025 - One of BookPage's Best Fiction Books of 2025 - One of Shelf Awareness's Best Books of 2025 - One of Apple's Best Books of 2025 - One of the Los Angeles Times's 101 Best Book Club Picks for Every Type of Reader From National Book Award finalist and winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction comes a tragicomic love story set in Lebanon, a modern saga of family, memory, and the unbreakable attachment of a son and his mother In a tiny Beirut apartment, sixty-three-year-old Raja and his mother live side by side. A beloved high school philosophy teacher and "the neighborhood homosexual," Raja relishes books, meditative walks, order, and solitude. Zalfa, his octogenarian mother, views her son's desire for privacy as a personal affront. She demands to know every detail of Raja's work life and love life, boundaries be damned. When Raja receives an invite to an all-expenses-paid writing residency in America, the timing couldn't be better. It arrives on the heels of a series of personal and national disasters that have left Raja longing for peace and quiet away from his mother and the heartache of Lebanon. But what at first seems a stroke of good fortune soon leads Raja to recount and relive the very disasters and past betrayals he wishes to forget. Told in Raja's irresistible and wickedly funny voice, the novel dances across six decades to tell the unforgettable story of a singular life and its absurdities - a tale of mistakes, self-discovery, trauma, and maybe even forgiveness. Above all, The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother) is a wildly unique and sparkling celebration of love.
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