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by Osama Alomar
Wonderful short stories that sharpen awareness, from a brilliantly gifted Syrian refugee.
Personified animals (snakes, wolves, sheep), natural things (a swamp, a lake, a rainbow, trees), mankind's creations (trucks, swords, zeroes) are all characters in The Teeth of the Comb. They aspire, they plot, they hope, they destroy, they fail, they love. These wonderful small stories animate new realities and make us see our reality anew. Reading Alomar's sly moral fables and sharp political allegories, the reader always sits up a little straighter, and a little wiser. Here is the title story:
Some of the teeth of the comb were envious of the class differences that exist between humans. They strived desperately to increase their height, and, when they succeeded, began to look with disdain on their colleagues below.
After a little while the comb's owner felt a desire to comb his hair. But when he found the comb in this state he threw it in the garbage.
"Starred Review. These brief narratives are not nihilistic; they convey a plea for progress and improvement. Alomar's writing brims with hope, and this slim volume is full of compassion and depth." - Publishers Weekly
"Starred Review. The stories are of perfect length, but one wishes the book went on for much longer." - Kirkus
This information about The Teeth of the Comb & Other Stories was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Osama Alomar was born in Damascus, Syria in 1968 and now lives in Chicago. A poet, short-story writer, and musician, Alomar is the author of three collections of short stories and a volume of poetry. He is a regular contributor to various newspapers and journals within the Arab world.
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