I walked through the streets as one lost, the night covering me. I went down to the southern part of the city, to the intersection of Thirteenth Street and Third Boulevard. Opposite me appeared an old man who was gathering his books that were scattered on the sidewalk so as to lock them in his little stall. I saw him hold a thin book with a blue cover. He held it out to me. I sat down on the sidewalk and started turning the pages slowly. My eyes landed on page 23 and I read:

“The following day brought an even more difficult experience, a sight that does not leave my memory. On the side of the road I saw a day-old baby discarded on the bosom of his dead mother and continuing to suck on her breasts.”

A Man Who Resembles Me is the third novel in Elias Khoury’s trilogy, The Children of the Ghetto. It concludes the story of the journey of Adam Dannoun between Lydda, Haifa, Yaffa, and New York. Most of the events in the novel are set in New York, in the autumn of Adam’s life, when he encounters demons and ghosts from his past, including Juliano Mer-Khamis and his mother, Arna, and the Palestinian national poet, Rashid Hussein, all of whom serve as mirrors for deciphering the secret of the notebooks.

The novel is followed by a conversation between the translator, Yehouda Shenhav-Sharabani and Elias Khoury on the occasion of the novel’s publication in Hebrew.

Afterword: A conversation with Elias Khoury

Translation editor: Muna Abu Baker

Translator of the poetry: Daniel Behar

Literary editor: Dafna Rosenblit

Copyeditor: Amira Binyamini-Nevo

Cover: Samaan Coam

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