The great storyteller Khaled Khalifa weaves a series of family tales into a tapestry depicting 100 years of Syrian history. The novel begins at a time when Christians and Muslims were still buried in the same cemetery, and takes us into the pulsating heart of the commercial city of Aleppo where we meet four friends from Christian, Muslim and Jewish backgrounds. When catastrophe comes and the river bursts its banks in 1907, they all lose close relatives. The disaster brings changes not only to the lives of the four friends, but for the entire country. "A family saga spanning several generations, is expertly interwoven with a panoramic view of a society of a bygone age. (...) An outstanding book." (Frankfurter Rundschau)