As a reporter and scholar of the Orient, Navid Kermani has witnessed and written about countless wars, crises, and upheavals. Now, in his prescient new novel, he condenses today’s profound uncertainty into a single summer. A friend, who had strayed onto a troubling political path, has taken his own life. As wars draw closer, debates grow ever more heated. And the narrator, already unmoored, finds his own sense of self further unsettled by the accusation that he is macho.

«A refreshingly nuanced novel that constantly questions its own perspectives - a stance urgently needed amid the infernal cacophony of opinions today.»