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How long does it take to read HAKAWATI?

Rabih Alameddine

HAKAWATI by Rabih Alameddine takes about 9 hours 41 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.

About 9 hours 41 minutes

A week or two of reading

First published 2008. 528 pages, about 145,200 words.

20 days at 30 minutes a day

Estimate based on 275 words per page.

At other speeds

Slow, 150 words a minute 16 hours 8 minutes
Average, 250 words a minute 9 hours 41 minutes
Fast, 400 words a minute 6 hours 3 minutes

The page count is the median across 16 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.

About the book

In 2003, Osama al-Kharrat returns to Beirut after many years in America to stand vigil at his father's deathbed. As the family gathers, stories begin to unfold: Osama's grandfather was a hakawati, or storyteller, and his bewitching tales are interwoven with classic stories of the Middle East. Here are Abraham and Isaac; Ishmael, father of the Arab tribes; the beautiful Fatima; Baybars, the slave prince who vanquished the Crusaders; and a host of mischievous imps. Through Osama, we also enter the world of the contemporary Lebanese men and women whose stories tell a larger, heartbreaking tale of seemingly endless war, conflicted identity, and survival. With The Hakawati, Rabih Alameddine has given us an Arabian Nights for this century.From the Trade Paperback edition.

Subjects: Lebanon, fiction, Fiction, general, Fiction, Storytellers, Gossip, Fiction, war & military

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