This novel delves into an era of Syrian history and re-raises burning questions about the struggle between fundamentalists and authority—an era that was nearly wiped out by the culture of hatred. The novel takes readers from the captivating city of Aleppo and the worlds of its women and their secret lives to Afghanistan, via Riyadh, Aden, London, and other places, weaving details that will undoubtedly leave their scents, blood, and hatred, as well as the desire for love and amazement, in the souls of readers of this book. In this novel, Khaled Khalifa has succeeded in narrating the experience of double oppression under fundamentalist organizations and within a society deprived of democracy, through multi-layered language and characters torn apart by questions of the future. The jury of the first International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2008 announced the list of six nominees for this award, and the Syrian writer and novelist Khaled Khalifa was chosen for his novel "In Praise of Hatred."