The Druses of Belgrade

Author: Rabih Alameddine

The novel tells the story of Hanna Yaqoub, a Christian man from Beirut whose profession is selling eggs. He happened to be on the docks of the port when a group of warring Druze was led away. As a result of the civil war in Mount Lebanon between them and the Maronites, which erupted in 1860, the Ottoman firman issued a decree to deport 550 Druze to the kingdom's prisons in the land of the Bulgarians, as punishment for their aggression against the Maronite Christians. Hanna Yaqoub was included with them; he was exiled and taken by sea to Belgrade Fortress on the borders of the Ottoman Empire, instead of another person who was released after his father paid a bribe to the Ottoman officer. The novel revolves around the suffering of Hanna and the rest of the prisoners over 12 years of imprisonment in Belgrade and other Balkan countries. This journey was followed by much suffering. Some of them died in Belgrade Fortress, others in Serbia, Montenegro, and Pristina, due to the harsh conditions. Nevertheless, the prison united the estranged, for those who were fighting among themselves, as soon as they were placed in one place, they became close, which is the essence of the historical incident. Back home, the novel tells of Hanna Yaqoub's wife, 'Helena Constantine,' and their daughter, Barbara, and how the absence of the husband, who left in the morning with a basket of eggs and did not return for twelve years, affected them, and how the wife struggled and resisted all hardships with one hope: that her husband would return.