Rabih Alameddine
Rabih Alameddine
Rabih Alameddineis a Lebanese-American painter and writer. He was born in Amman, Jordan to Lebanese Druze parents. He grew up in Kuwait and Lebanon, which he left at age 17 to live first in England and then in California. A lover of mathematics, he earned a degree in engineering from the University of California at Los Angelesand a Master of Business in San Francisco. He began his career as an engineer, then moved to writing and painting. The author of...
NationalityLebanese
ProfessionArtist
CountryLebanon
ceiling covered dream family father four home house left obscene political remains since summer time took
In the summer of 1988, my father took me up to look at the remains of our home, the dream house that he'd built. It was my first time since our family left four years earlier. Political and obscene graffiti covered the half-torn walls. There was no ceiling and surprisingly no floor: the parquet, the stone, the marble, all looted.
pick stopped trying
Before prognostication, a disclaimer: I have never been able to pick a winner. Not that it has ever stopped me from trying to. Well, it has stopped me from buying stock, but let's not talk about that.
rampant sports
Homophobia is rampant in soccer, probably more so than in any other sport. I'm not sure why.
life truth
I couldn't tell the truth if my life depended on it.
best since telling
I can make up stories with the best of them. I've been telling stories since I was a little kid.
two vanity people
There are two kinds of people in this world: people who want to be desired, and people who want to be desired so much that they pretend they don't.
love dream knives
I opened myself to you only to be skinned alive. The more vulnerable I became, the faster and more deft your knife. Knowing what was happening, still I stayed and let you carve more. That's how much I loved you. That's how much.
who-i-am people world
How can I expect readers to know who I am if I do not tell them about my family, my friends, the relationships in my life? Who am I if not where I fit in the world, where I fit in the lives of the people dear to me?
long-ago play lust
I long ago abandoned myself to a blind lust for the written word. Literature is my sandbox. In it I play, build my forts and castles, spend glorious time.
needs nerves bombs
Is life less thrilling if your neighbors are rational, if they don’t bomb your power stations whenever they feel you need to be admonished? Is it less rousing if they don’t rattle your windows and nerves with indiscriminate sonic booms just because they can?
country distance writing
By remaining constrained in one's environment or country or family, one has little chance of being other than the original prescription. By leaving, one gains a perspective, a distance of both space and time, which is essential for writing about family or home, in any case.
cities purpose grants
What is the purpose of a city if not to grant the greatest of gifts, anonymity?
coffee book hot
By nature, a storyteller is a plagiarist. Everything one comes across--each incident, book, novel, life episode, story, person, news clip--is a coffee bean that will be crushed, ground up, mixed with a touch of cardamom, sometimes a tiny pinch of salt, boiled thrice with sugar, and served as a piping-hot tale.
art sex wall
Sex, like art, can unsettle a soul, can grind a heart in a mortar. Sex, like literature, can sneak the other within one's wall, even if only for a moment, a moment before one immures oneself again.