and narrator whose best friend, Khalid, has been chosen to representtheschoolduringthefestivities thatwillaccompanytheking'svisit. Coming froma poor family,Omar is now especially envious because Khalid, whose familyis wealthy, has receivedtherarehonorofbeing allowed tokisstheking'shand.That this prearrangeddisplay of fealty leads to thedestruction oftheboys' friendship - and of their lives- is one of the many ironies of Taïa's richly textured novel. The author alternates very short,allusive sentenceswith long descriptionsof the narrator'sfamily background.Omar's distraught father functions as thedark,inverted mirrorimage of the exalted king. Deeply depressed because his wife has lefthim,thisdethronedfamilial monarch,a shadow of his former self,is now reduced to relyingon his son forcomfort and protection. Meanwhile,Omar at once despises and grudgingly admireshis mother, who chose a formof freedombut broughtshame upon his father and him by abandoning them,shirking the conjugal and maternal duties thatrigidlydefinedhersocial identity . Duringthelongperiodsofdialogue between Omar and Khalid, thesymbolismofthekingas a surrogatefather figure, ostensiblynurturingbut insidiouslydamaging,is repeatedly alluded to. The main narrative ends in a forestnear Salé, where the two friendsand rivals,in an extended sequence of oneiric reminiscences, confront and destroyeach other.As a disturbingcounterpoint, the last fewpages ofthenovel are narrated by themaid who has been working forKhalid's parents,a young black Africangirlwho has been exploited as a sex slave by therichfather and is being sent away fromthe house now thathe has tiredofher. Through his layered accumulation of unsettlingimagery,Taïa produces a bleak, poignant allegorical portraitof his countryat a timewhen it was under thepervasive controlof a ruthlessrulerwho demanded- and obtained - thathis subjectsveneratehimas a beneficent father and protector. EdwardOusselin Western Washington University Christa Wolf. Stadt der Engel, oder, The Overcoat of Dr. Freud. Berlin. Suhrkamp. 2010. 415 pages. €24.80. ISBN 978-3-518-42050-8 ChristaWolf'smostrecentautobiographical narrativecan be read as her long-awaited Wenderoman, in which she works throughher relationshipto the East German state, much as she had worked through herrelationship totheThirdReichin Kindheitsmuster (1976; Eng. A Model Childhood, 1980), her monumental, self-scrutinizing narrativeabout her childhoodunderNazism. FromSeptember1992 to June1993Wolfwas a scholar-in-residence at the Getty Centerin Santa Monica, California. During thattimetheWest German media, having learned of her early, inconsequential connection with the Stasi (Staatssicherheit, or secret police), mounted a vitriolic campaign thattransformed her froma writercriticalof the East German communistregimeintoa Staatsdichterin , orpartyhack. In Stadt der Engel (City of angels), Wolf's literaryreworking ofhertimein Los Angeles,thetime of narration,depicts the quotidian life of Wolf's alter ego narratorwriteras it is affectedby ghosts fromher GDR past, yet enriched bya cadreofnew friends. As the narratorrelives those events in Germanhistory from1945to the present thatshapedher,she provides readerswithan eyewitness accountofthehistory oftheGDR andtheWende, orturning point, as theculmination ofEastGermany's peaceful revolution is called.They are also made privyto the fears and anxieties, thefeelings ofguilt, shame,remorse, and the depression the narrator experiences as, dayafter day,sheis inundated by faxesfrom Berlin, apprising herof the ongoingdebate surrounding herStasiinvolvement. Still,as its playfulbilingual title signals, Stadt derEngel isabout more than theGDRpast.Despiteits at timesobsessive, broodingtone, there is also a playfulness at work in the textthatis alreadymanifest in itsironic subtitle. TheOvercoatofDr .Freud refers to an overcoat , reputedlyhavingbelonged to Freud,thathad come intothe possessionofone ofthenarrator's new Americanfriends; believing it made him invincible, he was distraught whenitwas stolen from hisoffice. Bequeathed tothenarrator ,thesymbolic overcoataccompaniesherthroughout herstayin theUnited States, helping herward off anxiety anddepression. Freud'smetaphorical overcoat isoneofa number ofnontraditional methods thenarrator drawson tohealbothbodyandpsyche. Othersinclude traditional Chineseacupuncture , theFeldenkrais method, theteachings of a Buddhistnun, and Angelina,a Ugandanhousekeeper , whomthenarrator elevates tothestatus ofherguardian angel. Drawing onnewwaysofknowing, thenarrator slowlymovesbeyond an obsessivepreoccupation with guiltand self-recrimination about having forgotten /suppressedher Stasi connection, gaininggreater compassionforand acceptanceof herself. To the degreethatStadt derEngel also documents a turning pointin Wolf'sepistemology and lifenarrative and embodiesnew facetsin herwriting, it shouldbe understood as a Wenderoman inthe doublesenseoftheterm. AnnaK. Kuhn University ofCalifornia, Davis Verse Adonis.Selected Poems. KhaledMattawa , tr. New Haven, Connecticut. YaleUniversity Press. 2010.xxvii + 399 pages.$30.isbn 978-0-300-15306-4 Theauthor offour booksofpoetry inEnglish, Libyan-born KhaledMattawaisa well-known American poet in hisown right and is therecipient of prestigious awards,including , most recently, the Academy ofAmerican Poetsaward,thePEN award forliterary translation, and a UnitedStatesArtists fellowship grant of$50,000 for 2010.Anassociateprofessor ofEnglish at theUniversity ofMichigan, histranslation ofAdonis'sSelected Poems, onwhich heworked for twodecades, isa veritabletourde force...