Road to Chlifa

Karim is a seventeen-year-old boy from Beirut, Lebanon.He is handsome: tall and thin, with dark skin, black hair, and delicate features. In Beirut, before the beginning of intensified violence, Karim is a diligent student preparing for his baccalaureate exam at a lycée. He is shy, well-mannered, and always tells the truth. However, his perspective begins to change as violence breaks out and his crush, Nada, dies. His relationship with twelve-year-old Maha opens his mind to new possibilities: he begins to question the value of always doing the “right” thing, to see the multi-faceted and elusive nature of truth, and to feel real anger at the state of warfare in his country. When he finds himself groping Maha in the night, he is ashamed of himself, but also realizes that his very shame has made him act towards her with further cruelty.

When Maha dies, Karim is devastated by the loss of his now-beloved companion and friend, as well as his inability to right things between them. Upon his arrival in Montreal, he is disconnected from the world, except for Maha’s infant brother, Jad. On a class ski trip, however, Dave and his friends’ violation of classmate My-Lan shocks him back into awareness.