"Warmly observed, richly detailed, and often bold and exciting, Schami's fine portrait of life in Damascus, Syria, in the middle of the 20th century is filled with a compelling set of characters. Noura is a Muslim girl who looks like Audrey Hepburn. Rami Arabi, her father, a noted sheikh, is frustrated that those who attend his mosque "treat God like a waiter in a restaurant." Salman is a Christian boy, hated by his drunkard father and devoted to his dog, and to Noura. Nasri Abbani is a wealthy man from an important family, but also a hopeless playboy, his business kept afloat only because of his clever clerk, Tawfiq. When Nasri sets foot in the studio of Hamid Farsi, the leading calligrapher in all of Syria, tragic and wondrous events are set in motion that will affect all in the most emphatic ways. Schami, born in Damascus, is one of Germany's most respected writers, bridging Arab and Western culture with his exquisite storytelling. A novel to be savored."

Start off your year... [with] Rafik Schami's superb new novel The Calligrapher's Secret, set in Damascus.

Schami's new novel shows Syrian society in all its colorful facets and touches all the reader's senses.

'The Calligrapher's Secret' is a huge Syrian tableau!"

The Calligrapher's Secret' is an exquisitely colorful universe of stories and a mirror of Syrian society in the 1950s.

– Denis Scheck, ARD Das Erste Television

What a book! And what a theme that unites it: rebellion against the impossibility of love, against religious hatred, and against intolerance.

– Brigitte

A literary masterpiece... a sensual homage to Damascus... you only wish it were a never-ending story.

– Sabine Tesche, Hamburger Abendblatt