What I Know About You

CBC BOOKS CANADIAN FICTION BOOKS TO READ IN FALL 2024
WINNER OF THE 2023 PRIX DES LIBRAIRES DE FRANCE 2024
WINNER OF THE 2024 PRIX DES CINQ CONTINENTS

A heartbreaking tale of a family and an impossible love, torn apart by secrets and traditions in late-twentieth-century Cairo.

In a tight-knit Levantine Christian family in 1960s Cairo, Tarek’s entire life is written in advance. He’ll be a doctor like his father, marry, and have children. Under the watchful eye of the family’s strong women, he starts to do just that – until a patient’s son, Ali, enters his life and turns it upside down. The two men’s unsayable relationship sparks a series of events as dramatic as the Six-Day War and assassination of President Anwar Sadat playing out in the background.

The turn of the millennium finds Tarek living as a doctor in Montreal. Someone is writing about him and to him, piecing together a past he wants only to forget. But who is the writer of this tale? And will Tarek figure it out in time? 

From Cairo’s grand boulevards and hidden alleys to Montreal’s grim winter, from the reign of Nasser to the early 2000s, What I Know About You tells the heartbreaking story of a family torn apart by an epic love.

A bestseller in its original Quebec edition, and the recipient of several awards, including the Prix Femina des Lycéens, What I Know About You is poised to be an international sensation.

"This novel is a searing love story that moves between Egypt and Montréal, that shifts between hearts, highlighting the sacrifices the characters feel they have to make for the ones they love. Romantic, surprising, mesmerizing, and so devastating, What I Know About You examines the terrible costs of family secrets and toxic shame." – Suzette Mayr, author of The Sleeping Car Porter