The Hakawati
By Rabih Alameddine
Picador £16.99, 513 pages
FT Bookshop price: £13.59

In the modern Arab novel, western fictional techniques often rub up against allegorical forms derived from the oral traditions of the Middle East. The marriage of fabulism and realism is not always a happy one but in Lebanese author Rabih Alameddine’s new novel the fusion of these two modes is dazzling.