Moving the Palace
About this audiobook
At the dawn of the twentieth century, a young Lebanese adventurer leaves the Levant to explore the wilds of Africa, encountering an eccentric English colonel in Sudan and enlisting in his service. In this lush chronicle of far-flung adventure, the military recruit crosses paths with a compatriot who has dismantled a sumptuous palace in Tripoli and is transporting it across the continent on a camel caravan.
The protagonist soon takes charge of this hoard of architectural fragments, ferrying the dismantled landmark through Sudan, Egypt and the Arabian Peninsula, attempting to return to his native Beirut with this moveable real estate. Along the way, he encounters skeptic sheikhs, suspicious tribal leaders, bountiful feasts, pilgrims bound for Mecca and T. E. Lawrence in a tent.
This is a captivating modern-day Odyssey in the tradition of Bruce Chatwin and Paul Theroux.
About the author
Charif Majdalani, born in Lebanon in 1960, is often compared to a Lebanese Proust. Majdalani lived in France from 1980 to 1993 and now teaches French literature at the Université Saint-Joseph in Beirut. The original French version of his novel Moving the Palace won the 2008 François Mauriac Prize from the Académie Francaise as well as the Prix Tropiques.
Edward Gauvin has received prizes and fellowships including those awarded by PEN America, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Fulbright program. His work has won the John Dryden Translation Prize and the Science Fiction & Fantasy Translation Award. He has translated over 200 graphic novels.
Jonathan Davis, who has narrated more than 150 audiobooks, has received widespread critical acclaim for his performances in a variety of genres. He's been nominated for an Audie Award in the Thriller / Suspense category, and he's read several AudioFile Earphones Award-winning titles. He has also narrated over thirty Star Wars titles. Jonathan has read such works as Snow Crash, The Stranger, Halo: Ghosts of Onyx, and The Shadow of the Wind. He also performs voice-over work and is the voice of Vladimir Lem in the Editors Choice Award-winning video game "Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne." Jonathan grew up in Puerto Rico and speaks Spanish, Portuguese, and Hebrew.
