The Road from Damascus

It is summer 2001, and Sami Traifi has gone to Damascus, escaping his fraying marriage and lack of direction -and hoping to find some kind of clarity away from his chaotic London existence. But instead he discovers a forgotten uncle in a gloomy back room and an ugly secret. On returning to London, things still aren't looking up. As Sami struggles to understand his wife's newly deepened faith, his brother-in-law's hip-hop Islamism and his father-in-law's need to see grandchildren, so his emotional and spiritual unravelling begins to accelerate. And the more he rebels, the closer he comes to betraying those he loves, edging ever nearer to the brink of losing everything... The Road from Damascusis an extraordinary novel of love, religion and revolution. It explores the weight of the past on the present and themes as big as commitment, faith and hope - and as fundamental as our need to believe in something bigger than ourselves, whatever that might be.