De Niro's Game (IMPAC Dublin Prize 2008)

De Niro's Game is the stunning winner of the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and the very first novel by up and coming Lebanese literary star Rawi Hage, also author of Cockroach.

Bassam and George are childhood best friends who have grown up on the Christian side of war torn Beirut. Now on the verge of adulthood, they must choose their futures: to remain in the exhausted, corrupt city of their birth, or to go into exile abroad, cut off from the only existence they have known.

Bassam chooses one path obsessed with leaving Beirut, he embarks on a series of petty crimes to fund his escape to the West. Meanwhile, George amasses power in the underworld of the city, embracing a life of military service, organised crime, killing, and drugs.

But their two paths inevitably collide, with explosive consequences.