The Singularity

In an unnamed coastal city filled with refugees, the mother of a displaced family calls out her daughter’s name as she wanders the cliffside road where the child once worked. The mother searches in vain until, spent from grief, she throws herself into the sea. Bearing witness to the suicide is another woman, there on a business trip; she will soon give birth to a stillborn baby. In the wake of her pain, the second woman remembers other losses—of a language, a country, an identity—when her family fled a distant war. In this powerful and moving novel, Balsam Karam offers a fresh approach to language and narrative as she questions our assumptions and perspectives. Her English-language debut, The Singularity is a compelling exploration of loss, history and memory.