This is the dazzling, ferociously inventive, larger-than-life story of Tanios, folk hero of the fictional Lebanese village of Kfaryabda, unearthed in fragments and cobbled together by a curious local historian two generations after his mysterious disappearance.

I was astonished and delighted by Maalouf's meandering narration, which spools around and around each passage until it colours behind your eyelids. I loved the needlepoint intricacy of the geopolitical intrigue and the legerdemain with which the colonial threat was introduced. And I liked the introspection and temperance of the final act -- how moving and human.

Winner of the 1993 Prix Goncourt; translated by Dorothy S. Blair.