Praise for The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother)
Winner of the National Book Award
One of TIME Magazine's 100 Must-Read Books of 2025
One of NPR's Books We Love of 2025
One of the Washington Post's 10 Best Audiobooks of 2025
One of the Washington Independent Review of Books's Favorite Books of 2025
One of BookPage's Best Fiction Books of 2025
"This sprawling tale centers on Raja, a man in his sixties who lives with his mother in Beirut, a city shaking with political and ecological turmoil. While the duo-both outsized personalities–navigate their cohabitation, Raja must weigh the responsibility he feels as a son against an opportunity to attend a writing residency in America. Raja's energetic narration is relentlessly funny, even (or especially) when it's turned to dark or disturbing events from his past. The story jumps back and forth through time and across continents, but Raja's sensitive and ultimately optimistic point of view is a gripping anchor."–The New Yorker
"Thoroughly absorbing."–Washington Post
"Rabih Alameddine returns to Beirut, Lebanon as the volatile, beloved setting and muse for his new novel, the enticingly titled The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother) . . . And though the novel bears witness to the indignities of the city of Beirut and its citizens, there is ebullience throughout this account, a devil-may-care delight in the act of telling . . . The momentum the title creates never lets up, and Alameddine, through Raja, delivers a tragic yet exuberant tale steeped in the experience of living Lebanese."–Winnipeg Free Press
"A tightrope walk, a magic trick . . . magnificently articulated through the instrument of Raja's voice."–Alta
"Hilarious, seasoned with history, and utterly brilliant."–Bay Area Reporter
"Rabih Alameddine's edgy charm always leaves room for compassion, which readers will find in abundance in this challenging but exceptional book."–BookPage (starred review)
"I can think of few novelists more skilled in the art of blending deep trauma with irreverent humor than Rabih Alameddine. You're so damn charmed by the irascible charisma of his narrators–by their wicked bite and breezy self-deprecation and gimlet eyes–that you'll let them ferry you to the most heartbreaking and harrowing of places. Raja the Gullible is another tragicomic triumph."–Dan Sheehan, Literary Hub
"Rabih Alameddine is one of my all-time favorite authors and indeed one of my most read authors, so I mean it as no small compliment when I say I think his latest novel is one of his very best. The True True Story is a perfectly witty and tender portrait of the chaos and dogged persistence of one catty Lebanese philosophy teacher and his lovingly annoying mother. Great voice, heavy topics, funny prose, and a rich cast of characters!" –Samia Saliba, Radius of Arab American Writers (RAWI)
"Alameddine chronicles a Lebanese family's turbulent but happy lives in his ebullient latest . . .Throughout, the author skillfully juxtaposes unflinching depictions of war and deprivation with the narrator's joie de vivre. It's a ravishing performance." –Publishers Weekly
"Alameddine is gifted at finding the humor in what for most writers would be singular traumatic themes, including AIDS, the Lebanese Civil War, and the plight of Middle Eastern migrants. Here, he applies his sardonic wit again to the Civil War as well as the calamities of Covid-19, LebanonR
