This novel is an amusing, ironic tale of a contemporary Arab village elder, the family and political turmoil that engulf him, and his nightly discussions with an angel who helps him understand how our modern, fractious world got this way.

Abou Ben Adhem, a Palestinian, copes by day with village political intrigue, Arab-Israeli violence and his own family turmoil, interspersed with nightly conversations with an angel named Cohen about the roots of mankind's behavior through the ages, in this poignant and ironic novel set in Gaza in 2001.