The Singularity is an incredibly dense and raw novel about a mother's grief over the loss of a child. This is an intricate and poetic novel, exploring emotion in ways that I've never quite experienced before, truly replicating the feeling of heartbreak in the reader. This is a novel to be savoured and not rushed through. An important and powerful piece of literature!

A stunningly thoughtful read. Dealing with heavy themes throughout such as belonging, displacement, and racism, it’s not an easy read however this hauntingly short novel packs a punch.

“The Singularity” – Balsam Karam (translated from Swedish by Saskia Vogel)

“Meanwhile elsewhere – just as the light turns green and the cars along a coastline prepare to leave the city towards the half-desert and the mountains – more slowly than ever a woman crosses the highway, which, along with the corniche, is all that holds the ocean ever rising at bay”.

The woman is searching for her child in the seaside town, screaming her daughter’s name whilst in the shadow of wealthy tourists. The town is full of refugees, especially young children, and the majority live in squalor (shown in detail) while the tourism booms around them. In a final desperate act, the woman throws herself into the sea, which is where the book starts to turn into something unique.

The book then shifts to the perspective of a pregnant woman, who witnesses the act above. Pregnant and on a business trip, her section offers sharp juxtapositions between her life and that of the woman, asking all kinds of questions on motherhood and family that only get sharper when she herself suffers a loss.

If I’m honest, both these parts of the story struggled to hold my attention, with the book keeping you at arm’s length with its writing style and anonymous nature. There’s definite elements of cynicism, and it’s really unsubtle in its portrayal of the suffering of the child refugees and the ineffectiveness of aid agencies.

The third part of the book, however, really grabbed my attention. Told in short vignettes, we learn of the pregnant woman’s childhood and her own immigrant experience in Sweden (which would appear to reflect the author’s), drawing ever more parallels together into the singularity of the title. At least, in my interpretation.

Kinda struggling to put all my thoughts down about this one, even with the help of the #translatedgemsbookclub. It’s a tough read in many ways, one which others clearly love a lot more than me. I THINK I can recommend this one, if only for the final part, but this book is not as universal as I expected.

Thank you to @fitzcarraldoeditions and @netgalley for my ARC copy!

In prose that oscillates in nonlinear waves, in vignettes, in fragments, The Singularity speaks with fierce heart and soft melancholy about grief and loss of people, place, home, language, identity, safety, everything you know and hold dear. The proverbial rug being pulled out from under you- can you rebuild, move forward? How long can you keep rebuilding if the rug keeps being pulled, if you carry a culture of loss?

Two women, Two mothers, Two refugees from and in Western Asia. Their losses. So close as to make the distance between them nonexistent. A Singularity.

This book is gorgeous. It aches. It cuts. It is marks the heart. I don’t think I’ll ever stop shouting about it.

A beautiful, deeply thoughtful read that touched on so many important facets of life. This was stunningly written and emotionally wrought, I'll certainly be keeping an eye out for more books from this author.

As soon as I got to the end of this haunting short book I immediately went back to the beginning and started again as it’s quite a confusing read at times and it’s not always easy to discern whose story we are following. It’s a fragmented narrative that jumps about in time and place and it takes careful reading. But it certainly rewards that careful reading and the payoff is most definitely worthwhile. It all takes place in an unnamed country, in a city with a corniche and with mountains in the background and focuses on two women. Both are refugees who have been displaced by war and violence. One is a mother who is desperately searching for her missing teenage daughter who has disappeared from her workplace in a restaurant on the corniche. The other is a pregnant woman whose latest scan reveals that her baby has died. She witnesses the bereaved mother as she jumps off the cliff to her death. (This happens early on, so isn’t a spoiler) The novel is divided into three parts, and each is different in style, language and story. Past and present blur in a tale of migration, homelessness, loss and grief, especially that of a mother for a lost child. The pain of one mother is the pain of every mother, the pain of one refugee is the pain of all. This is such a timely and relevant book, and tells a universal story. It’s set against the indifference of the tourists who are witnesses but remain detached and disassociated from the tragedies around them, concerned only with their own enjoyment. The novel made a deep impression on me and it deserves a wide readership.

Dealing with heavy themes such as loss, mother/daughter relationships as well as identity and immigration, this is a short but powerful novel.
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the chance to read this ARC.

This is a difficult review, to be honest. I found the subject and the themes of the book so relevant and I was really looking forward to getting immersed in a reality - unfortunately - so common, yet to different from my own, but the writing didn't quite captivate me and, even though I read this quickly and it didn't feel dense or overly complicated, I found myself feeling detached and a bit bored throughout the book.
I would still recommend this book to everyone who wants to explore themes such as immigration, the reality of refugees and the profound racism and xenophobia they often face. However, I think this is the kind of book that had a lot of potential, but didn't quite deliver - at least, not for me.

A profound exploration of mother/daughter relationships, 'The Singularity' by Balsam Karam touches on grief and motherhood in a poetic and deeply haunting way.

Set against the backdrop of an unnamed city filled with migrants, the book sheds light on the harsh realities faced by its inhabitants and addresses the damaging effects of gentrification on the vulnerable.

Karam's writing is lyrical and perfectly conveys the complexities of human experience, making this book a devastating exploration of relationships and societal issues.

The ONLY downside to this book, is the structure is unconventional, and at times, became confusing. Because of this, I sometimes felt lost and unmotivated to continue reading. I will say that the structure, although confusing, is necessary and does enrich the storyline!

A study of the rippling effects of displacement and militaristic violence against peoples. This novel hones in on the individuals, otherwise reduced to statistics and numbers, who are left behind when war and catastrophe crash through their lives. A poignant narrative with many unfortunate echoes in reality.

3.75 stars

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for my free digital ARC!

This is definitely a story of our times, unfortunately. When immigrants are criticised for fleeing danger and seeking refuge, when people so desperate for safety they would cross the Channel in a dinghy are called opportunists. Set in an unnamed country, in a town by the sea, The Singularity is, in a fun twist on the title, a cacophony of different voices, all coming together to paint a devastating picture of motherhood and the plight of the refugee. I found it a bit confusing at times, as often the author literally splices one POV into the other, using slashes to demarcate, but that’s likely just because I was reading it during my busiest time of year at work. With the proper attention, this book would be stunning. I can definitely see it making some prize lists this year. It has a haunting quality, which is a testament to the translator (Saskia Vogel, working from the Swedish). If it makes a prize list, I think I’ll give it a reread.

From the first we are greeted with sentences that are disjointed, there is a intangible feel to the writing and to the characters created by Karam. It's as if her women are trying to grasp something solid to hang on to but instead are grasping air and are so left flailing.

Karam examines, loss and the resultant grief for the loss. The loss of children, the loss of country, culture, family. Her choice of words and structure as discussed above, underlines the shaky ground these women stand on.

An ARC kindly give by author/publisher via Netgalley.

Not the happiest book to start 2024 with, but it definitely makes an impression.

In episodic style Balsam Karam tells the story of two women in a fictional coastal city of a war-torn country, presumably somewhere in the Middle East, where rich tourists dine in fancy restaurants alongside struggling local refugees in the streets. One local woman desperately searches for her missing daughter who used to work in one of the restaurants. The other woman, visiting from Sweden on a business trip, is pregnant and later confronted with stillbirth.

The fragmented form and strangely sentences from which any unnecessary word has been removed, took me some pages to get used to, but ultimately worked very well, going straight to the heart of the matter.

Highly recommended.

In a nameless city with nameless characters, a pregnant woman sees another woman throws herself off the edge of a cliff. Some time later, the first woman loses her baby.

The Singularity deals with grief in a delicate, ethereal sort of way. The main characters don’t have names, and neither do the places the story takes place in. There are heartbreaking passages about war and how it affects the innocent people, there is an interesting discussion around what it is to be an asylum seeker and racism. The writing is beautiful and the book make me cry on multiple occasions.

However, because of how experimental the novel is, the reader gets easily lost. I am sure it is done on purpose but it does render the reading experience a little bit jarring and stilted. It is typically the sort of books that requires a physical copy to be able to annotate and make sense of some passages. I believe some of the confusion might have been due to the translation as well. I had high hopes for this book and was unfortunately a little bit disappointed as most of the time I was completely lost.

A highly emotional and unsettling novel which weaves maternal loss and grief from two perspectives, into themes of displacement and survival in extreme circumstances. Much of the story is set on "the corniche", a curving cliff-side road, studded with restaurants and market stalls, popular with tourists, while also providing casual work to some of the migrants and possibly camouflaging the extent of the circumstances the displaced community dwell in.

There is something quite esoteric and abstract about the language the author uses. I'm not sure if this comes down to translation, or if I'm just not concentrating enough, but regardless of the haziness of my understanding of the sentences and structure, I can observe and feel the desperation surrounding these characters.

There's nothing obscure about the business of survival, the urgency to find a missing daughter, the priority of securing enough bread to feed the children, the vigilance required to protect the girls and women and little boys from the greedy leer of the predator.

Perhaps this book is telling us that whatever we see through our white gaze, whatever we imagine we feel as empathy and concern is filtered through our own privileged tinted glasses, so despite the glimpses of prejudice we witness against immigrants, we can never fully understand their vulnerabilities.

Truly impactful.

Publication Date: 17th January 2024
Thanks to #NetGalley and #fitzcarraldoeditions for the ARC

The Singularity by Balsam Karam is a provocative and experimental novel about loss, identity, memory, and race. Through lucid, dreamlike prose Karam navigates these themes through three stylistic sections.

I really struggled with the first half of the novel. I found the disconnected writing style and purposeful blending of narrator voice distracting. It felt difficult to locate a steady rhythm within the inconsistent organising principle of each chapter.

However, I did find the lack of individual identity throughout the novel interesting: all the children as one voice, the missing girl named "the missing one", and the counsellor's ever changing name between one generic male name to another. I especially enjoyed how the children's singular and aware dialectic voice represented their experience. It reminded me of Donald Barthelme's short story, The School, where its children equally had that mature and all inclusive voice.

In addition, I loved the second half of the novel which consisted of lethargic, fragmented flashes between its two styles. The second style felt fresh compared to the stifled opening. I loved the back and forth between the narrator's present and past memory. Karam used /'s to differentiate these spaces within the same paragraph, switching every few words, aligning the present tragedy with reflection. The flow here felt much more in line with the intended narrative. In the final section, the style hits its peak using short paragraphs separated on each page. The floundering of these short flashbacks in the page's empty space successfully reflected the torment of the narrator.

Thanks to Fitzcarraldo for the advanced copy.

A very moving look at belonging, motherhood, war, loss, migration and grief.

The book itself is split between the story of a mother searching for her lost grown up daughter who has disappeared (as many others have) after working at a restaurant. This all takes place in an unnamed but war-torn, economically poor country. The second string to the book is the story of a migrant woman expecting her first child. One night she is at the restaurant and sees the first mother, stricken with grief, throw herself to her death. The woman's unborn child is later discovered to be dead inside her.

The two strands come together in the third part of the novel describing the reactions of the young mother-to-be on having being told her baby has died juxtaposed with the story of her moving to another country with her siblings, mother and grandmother.

The descriptions of the mother being told her unborn child had died were difficult to read. Her reluctance to be separated from the unborn baby is extremely emotive.

In fact the whole book gives a description of migrant life that is hard to stomach but worth it. The split stories in the third part may seem confused at first but the way it is written only adds to the story in my opinion. I found it easy to get to grips with even if the subject matter was not easy to read.

Balsam Karam has produced a beautiful but heartbreaking and challenging novel that I'd highly recommend.

Thanks to Netgalley and Fitzcarraldo for the advance review copy.

I had high hopes for this book, it promised whimsical and intimate writing that explored motherhood and grief in a harrowing depiction of loss. Yet, It provided me with poetic writing at a great distance from the reader. The writing while beautiful, does create a disconnect between the author and the audience that at times makes it hard to emotionally connect to the characters or to be moved by the story in the way in which was intended. Sometimes even causing confusion about who was speaking or in what context the chapter took place due to the frequent time and perspective jumps.

While this is a great example of rereads enlightening parts of the text that may have been missed, I think for the average reader this may be hard to tether themselves to, making a reread of the text unlikely and therefore creating a possibility of missing the story's true potential.

I do, however, think this book would be good for those who find it fascinating to study, break down and annotate a text. For those willing to spend a lot of time dissecting and getting to know an author's history they may find a home in Karam's writing. But for the general public, I would find this book hard to recommend.

This book shows great promise of the author's own writing abilities and look forward to seeing her career progress in her next work.

Thank you to Fitzcarraldo Publishing, in partnership with NetGalley, for providing this ARC of 'The Singularity' by Balsam Karam (Translated by Saskia Vogel)

"If she stands here long enough – if she stands among the cars, eyes, and hands tightly shut in a prayer so intimate nothing but her wish pushes through – maybe the God who proffered but then took back this child will return it to her."

This sentence alone made me sob, and you can imagine the melancholy. The despondency. The inconsolable.

Told from a mother’s point of view, she’s telling her mournful days after her unbearable sadness of a lost daughter. She keeps roaming at places her daughter has been, crying until her voice is lost in the void.

The story shifted to the 2nd woman, who in parallel, lost her child in stillbirth. Her grief holds her down, and soon she loses everything in her sight; even the soundness of her mind.

Karam’s writing on the tapestry of loss and belongings is so exquisite, a period when human boundaries with their surroundings become more murky or erode, and how griefs shapes our perception. It touches on human fragility, and how hopes are keeping hearts beating.

Recommended if you love A little luck by Cladia Pinero, or you want a good cry, with a twist of poetic proses.

P/S: The scene of the mother asking the phone booth person to immediately called her if her daughter returns the call is just....damn. DAMN.

The story seems to follow the story of a mother who lost her daughter in a city they sought asylum in, and a young woman who left the same country as a child and now struggling with the feelings and memories triggered by a miscarriage.

The book touches themes of asylum and political persecution, multi-generational trauma, loss, loneliness, absent fathers, the role of mothers and motherhood in fractured and fracturing societies, etc.

While the book is clearly important and the fragments of stories within it are gentle and emotive, the form the author chose to write just didn't resonate with me. It wasn't always clear what character was speaking, and the storylines merged into one another without any delineation (creating confusion). I wasn't always sure what a sentence belonged to - is something one of the characters said or something they dreamt? which exact character was the one talking/thinking? what context this was said in (now, or a memory)?

I just found the book confusion. It made it very difficult to follow and read, and I found myself putting the book down every 5 pages, being distracted by random things.

While I understand its important, I struggle to recommend it to anyone but the avid fans of new forms of writing in books. If you enjoy the content more than the form, or form that is easier to digest, then this isn't for you. I just felt the book was way too much work.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an early copy of this book in return for an honest review.