Rawi Hage's novel De Niro's Game , set in Beirut during the civil war, won the Impac Literary Prize today. I think the deceptive sparseness of the novel may have led me to underappreciating it. Or is this one of those books where you have to consider, is it the quality of the prose or the importance of the theme that is being honoured? What would Russell Smith say?
Anyway, Noah Richler in Maclean's last year wrote a powerful article about the novel and what it says about the immigrant experience in Canada. Good for Rawi Hage.
