Bliss Street

One Beirut night, at the beginning of the new millennium, when the city is hit by yet another power-cut and the sonic booms of Israeli jets echo around the hillsides, Maya Hayek storms out of her house after a heated argument with her mother. Meanwhile a plane from England is forced to make an emergency landing on its way to Dubai and James, recently-fired pop video director and reluctant mobile phone salesman, finds himself stranded in a city that will turn his life upside down. “Bliss Street” is a colourful, fast-paced and brilliantly plotted novel that illuminated the extraordinary mosaic of modern Lebanon. In this “Middle Eastern Short Cuts”, a rich Beiruti socialite with a hidden past, a Palestinian refugee in search of her long-lost relatives and the eagle-eyed, gossiping Mrs. Jihad collide with the lives of James and Maya. Alongside pop videos, politics, arranged marriages, diamond smuggling, and the huge upheavals of the Israeli military withdrawal, they form the backdrop to the passionate love affair that develops between two unlikely individuals.