The Offering

A Tunisian diasporic poet explores the nature of loss as his life tragically falls apart in Salah el Moncef's moving, and strangely hopeful, new novel, "The Offering."

After countless professional disappointments, Tariq Abbassi flees Tunisia, with his wife, Regina, for a new life in France, where he plans to make it big as an experimental poet. But life in Bordeaux is not as conducive to artistic inspiration as Tariq had hoped, and soon he is struggling just to keep his family together. His uncompromising ambition and untethered anger, however, ultimately lead to an emotional rupture, and Tariq soon finds himself completely alone when Regina takes the children and leaves.

Told in flashbacks, by a distraught, hospitalized Tariq, readers learn that this abandonment is only the first in a string of unspeakable tragedies that befall him. And, soon enough, Tariq realizes the reason behind his current condition: both of his beloved sons died after a horrific act of negligence.

Reeling from his devastating loss while attempting to cope with a traumatic brain injury, Tariq finds his already tenuous grasp on reality slipping away...