The story was interesting but the language and the narration put me off. This is a personal reaction, I do not like swearing and profanity in any form and this book is littered with it (rightly so given the lives they have lead) but still, I could not finish it.
Since I did not read it completely, I cannot review it on social media.
This is a tale of a family of immigrants in a hostile environment who work hard for their everyday lives

Literary fiction at its best an involving emotional story a Syrian family two brothers who now live in France .Two brothers to different points of view of the world.A look at immigrant life today.A book that drew me in to their world their family the lives of immigrants,#netgalley#europabooks

Older Brother was different from most books I read, and I think that's why it stands out so much in my mind. It felt very real and almost visceral at times. I don't think I'll be quick to forget this one!

One more current example as to why we would all be well-served by reading more translations. The story of two brothers of Syrian origin growing up in France and representing 2 different life trajectories is not a story of good and evil, but something more complex. It raises more questions than it answers and functions entirely within the literary reserving its ultimate judgments.

My Thoughts: Older Brother is the story of two Franco-Syrian brothers born and raised in Paris. Their mother died when they were in their early teens and the two watched their father try to make his living as a taxi driver. The elder brother smoked a lot of weed and drove for UBER. The younger brother worked as a nurse until he went off to Syria to do humanitarian work, then dropped completely out of contact. While I enjoyed the story when it was focused on the brothers and their relationship, huge chunks of the book were just too dull, including the younger brother’s time in Syria and the older brother’s run-ins with the law. What did work for me in Older Brother was the plight of being Syrian in an age of terrorism. That gave me much to think about. I also really liked the epilogue (something I rarely say). It made the entire story make much more sense. I’m just not sure it was worth the wait.

I’m not usually a fan of multiple points of view as I find them somewhat gimmicky and artificial. However, this is a case where it really works. The tension holds between the brothers because each one is so relatable in his own voice. The immigrant experience is such a 21st century reality. Guven does a solid job of conveying the strain of it on both individuals and the family unit. Timely and worth the read.

They are neither French, nor the typical Arabs you find in Paris who mainly come from the former colonies in the Maghreb countries. So no wonder the two brothers who grow up without their mother do not belong anywhere. Their father left Syria in the hope of a better life for his kids, but the older of his sons got in trouble early, only the younger one who works as a nurse in a hospital seems to have a promising future. Yet, the feeling of being unable to fulfil his dreams – becoming a real doctor, being treated like the French – throws him off the track. With a Muslim humanitarian organisation, he hopes to do something useful with his life at least and leaves the country for Syria and the war. Three years after abominable conditions leave their mark and when he returns, he is not only the same young man he was before anymore but he also has a mission to accomplish.

“We used to just be Syrians. Well, he was Syrian, and we were Maghrebins, Syrians, sometimes French, occasionally Breton; it depended who we were hanging out with. In real life, until the war in Syria, we were all more just banlieusards than anything else. But since the war, everyone’s been calling themselves Muslim.”

Mahir Guven portrays two possible ways of dealing with an undoubtedly highly demanding situation. No matter how much effort Europeans put into welcoming refugees and migrants of all kinds, societies are not easy to actually enter. The boys have a French mother and a Syrian father, thus by nature, do not completely belong anywhere. This makes them not only fragile and prone to all kinds of delinquencies, but also perceptible to questionable ideologies which on the surface seem to provide answers neither the family nor the society can offer.

The debut novel gives the young men not only a voice, but also the reader a chance to look into their heads and get an understanding of their feelings and lacking sense of belonging. It also shows that it is not inevitably the family, the friends or the milieu someone lives in which determine about their life. There are always options, decisions are made and even if you opt for one road, this does not obligatorily have to be a one-way street. Second, the terrorists who threaten our peaceful life are not always stupid idiots, but the intelligent ones who simply were refused their share of happiness and a chance in life.

I was immediately immersed in the novel which is written in a lively and authentic tone. But first and foremost, I find it highly relevant to read about these kinds of perceptions and feelings, by far too long other voices have domineered the discourse and if we want to live up to our ideals, we need to listen to them, too.

DNF 50%

“Getting closer to death has put me and life on a fist-name basis. I flirt with one while thinking of the other.”


This may be one of the cases in which I can tell that it's not the book, it's me.
Older Brother has a lot to offer: a narratives that blends gritty humour with a razor-sharp socio-political commentary, achieving a striking realism that makes for some thought-provoking reading material.
Sadly Mahir Guven's style didn't quite work for me. The narratives in this book have an intentionally cacophonous effect, and their haphazardness emphasises the chaotic world in which the two brothers, our narrators, live.
On most days, if asked, I would say that I am not a fan of the 'stream-of-consciousness' method of narration, so while I did appreciate why this type of technique was being implemented (especially if we consider that [one of the brothers was discharged from the army after being diagnosed with schizophrenia), I still found it a bit hard going. At times I thought it perfectly captured the contrasting emotions felt by the characters, but for the most part I struggled to get into the novel's frenzied rhythm.
Some of the descriptions and metaphors stood out for the wrong reasons: “Tears lurked in my eyes like Viet Cong soldiers, threatening to burst out” and “The Viet Congs hiding behind his pupils leapt out and streamed down his nose and over his lips” being some of the most unnecessarily overdone ones.

NetGalley's edition of this novel contain quite a few mistakes that were distracting (at times I wondered if they were intentional or not) and I didn't agree with/understand some of the translator's choices; for example in the English version both brothers refer to their father as 'Pop' (which sounds very very American) while in Guven's original French one the brothers call their father 'daron' (which can mean old man or father). To me 'Pop' didn't really suit the French setting....

Still, if you don't mind a chaotic narrative style that verges on being 'stream of consciousness' you might want to check this out.

Older Brother is an intense, emotional story about two brothers. They are half-French, half-Syrian, living in a poor Parisian neighbourhood with their widowed father. This story is both remarkable and, at times, heartbreaking. While it is mostly character-driven and the story runs slowly, it never gets boring. The style is pretty simple, but Guven managed to make it work. This story doesn’t need poetic descriptions or witty dialogues. It is great because it is so raw.

Because of their origin, the brothers have spent their whole lives marginalized, outcast, unsure of their own identities. They are not Syrian, but the French also consider them foreigners. Their father is a Communist who hates religions, yet they grow up to be Muslims. They belong to both countries and both cultures, and still, they don’t feel at home anywhere.

What I really like about this novel is that it explores in details what it means to be an immigrant. Even though the guys were born in France and spent their whole lives there, they still do not consider France their homeland. On the contrary, they are outcasts, destined to fail. Unfortunately, thousands and thousands of migrants all over the world share their feelings and their destiny.

In addition to the mistreatment of immigrants, Guven also comments on the Islamophobia that has been growing for years now, especially after the Charlie Hebdo and Bataclan attacks. Both these issues are real and I think that addressing them in this novel was a good move. It truly leaves the readers with a great deal to think about.

While I did enjoy the ending, I felt that it was a bit rushed. A couple of extra chapters would have made the ending much more satisfying.

Both brothers are incredibly captivating characters. Still, there are more chapters from the older brother’s perspective. I, however, found the younger brother’s Syrian chapters fascinating and I wish there were more of them. I feel like his disillusionment with his homeland and his actions after his return to France would have benefited from a few additional chapters.

To sum up, I think this book is really fascinating. It is well-written, has interesting characters, and addresses important issues. So, I highly recommend it to anyone who likes thought-provoking stories about war, conflicted loyalties, and social injustice.

Thank you to Europa Editions and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is a poignant, raw, shocking and deeply thought-provoking story of two brothers, and how their past and present diverge and collide. The chapters are written in changing POV between the older and the younger, and the story of their father also plays an important role. The voices are wholly authentic, and the life that each of the brothers has chosen, or rather settled for, is very believable. The writing does not necessarily flow easily - but it accurately reflects the tone and thoughts of these characters, and as a whole the book is beautifully written. Highly recommended!

In a highly politicised world, Older Brother is a painfully intense tour de force of fractured hearts and minds. An outstanding novel that is chilling in its capacity to foretell violence, and anxious in its observation of how hardships are propagated amongst hard-working and under-appreciated people. What seems, just, in one person’s eyes can be an affront in another. This book touches on many issues of modern society along with the turmoil and prejudices of immigrants integrating into a new society and culture, and the threat of terrorism.

The novel is told alternately through the eyes of two brothers – one older and one younger. We are never told their names until the last few pages which I felt maintained the belief that these men could be symptomatic but finally jolted with the realisation that a specific identifiable individual did exist.

The two brothers are half French and half Syrian, with their Syrian Father immigrating to France and marrying a Breton woman, who has since passed away. The older brother is an Uber taxi driver which puts him into direct conflict with his father who has spent his whole life in France, as a traditional taxi driver now witnessing how this new competition is affecting his livelihood. Ironically each job is precarious and has them working every hour they can. It is tough grinding out a living, trying to integrate into society, fulfilling ambitions and dreams, but it can always get a lot worse.

The younger brother is a hospital nurse, religious, intelligent, but disillusioned that the route for him to be a doctor, was closed. Disillusioned knowing that he possessed capabilities that exceeded the doctors that were respected and paid much higher than he. Disillusioned that he couldn’t put his skills to better use. Eventually, he decides to pursue a humanitarian opportunity in war-torn Syria, without telling his family.

The father and the older brother struggle to comprehend what has happened the younger man: has he fulfilled his ambition to work for a humanitarian agency or has he been caught up in the Muslim conflict as a Jihadi fighter. When he returns home to France after three years, we learn how he had spent his time and what his plans are now he is back in France. The French authorities are also aware of the threat he possesses. The tension rises towards the end of the novel and a dramatic dilemma is waiting to be faced.

This book is unfortunately very indicative of the world we live in today and in particular in France where different Arab cultures struggle along with European culture and the ever-present threat of violent conflict. Older Brother is beautifully written and manages to cloak the novel with an atmosphere of foreboding and gloom. Moments of dark humour add to the multiple layers developed in this complex and compelling novel.

I would recommend reading this book and I'd like to thank Europa Editions and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC version in return for an honest review.

Older Brother’ takes us into the lives of an immigrant Muslim family living in Paris, and it provides an enlightening and thought provoking experience, taking us right to the heart of how it feels to be Franco-Syrian, feeling as if you don’t really belong anywhere, either in your adopted country or indeed your mother country Syria.

The father is an atheist communist who left his home in Syria to study in France, but he met his future wife and never went back. A taxi driver by trade, this puts him in direct opposition to his elder son who drives for an app based car service. The younger son is a nurse in a local hospital, but he feels like he’ll never be really accepted, and he grows tired of constant rejections, leading him to join a Muslim humanitarian organisation who help injured civilians in the war in Syria. He believes his medical skills will be put to better use there, and it will also give him chance to see where his family originated from.

As we meet the family, the mother has died and there’s friction between this family of males - the father has completely different views to his sons on everything, and it grates that his eldest son is in direct competition working for Über, when he himself has spent decades working unsocial hours in his taxi cab just to keep these boys fed and clothed.

When the youngest son leaves home, he goes without telling his brother and father, and they’re left wondering where he is, (though they both have their suspicions that he may be in Syria,) but has he gone to tend the sick and injured, or is it to become a Jihadi fighter?

It drives them both crazy wondering if he’s still alive, and older brother is torn between desperately wanting to see his younger brother, and wanting to kill him for what he’s putting them through.

When the younger brother returns home unannounced some three years later, we learn in detail exactly how he’s spent that time, and it makes for a riveting read, but it also spells danger for the older brother, who is hiding him in his apartment, because if the authorities find out, he could be accused of harbouring a terrorist!

This is such a beautifully written book that manages to throw light on many issues including class, immigration, violence and war, as well as the more down to earth ones such as family and brotherhood, but serious as these issues are, the author manages to imbue the older son’s character with an abundance of humour, displaying itself in some witty and keenly expressed observations. Told in alternating chapters entitled ‘Older Brother’ and ‘Younger Brother’ it comes highly recommended!

Exceptional insight into the immigration experience, but here there's a twist -- the immigration actually happened years before when a Syrian man went to France to study and never left. His wife dies before the events notated here, and the family history spools out via their two sons, in alternating chapters, with individual voices. The Older Brother works as an Uber driver, in direct opposition to his father who has been driving a taxi to support his family, and is considering selling his medallion that is rapidly losing value in the face of the very industry that employs Older Brother. Younger Brother, more idealistic and spiritual, works as a nurse in the OR but aims for higher contribution. How their stories evolve is truly eyeopening for many reasons, as is the view of life for immigrants in France. With so many novels addressing this particular issue, I hope that this one manages to rise above the crowd and gain the recognition and attention it deserves.

A very informative story that shows to keen outsiders how complex the relationship within families can be and how destructive allegiance to an ideal can prove. Big brother is a taxi driver and everyday he dreams about the direction his life has taken and his inability to go beyond the confines of his metal coffin. Little brother, once a surgeon, now fighting in Syria for a belief he has come to accept as the true way to happiness and fulfillment. What happens when family, ambition, and belief collide is the essence of this wonderful novel. One of the best opening lines I have ever read..." Death is the only true thing, the rest is just a list of details." is followed by many insightful observations..."Muslims were shit, less than zeros in a society that teaches about equality and tolerance and respect"....."And then you just keep going up toward the next summit. It's simple. You just have to breathe a little bit sometimes to catch your breath"....."Life hangs on the word if".....Many thanks to the good people at netgalley for a gratis copy of Older Brother in return for an honest review and that is what I have written. Recommended.

Older Brother is a thought-provoking novel centered on family, religion, migration, and modern-day France and Syria. Told through the lens of two brothers, it deals with their relationship and how they navigate young adulthood as half-Muslim French men living in Paris. This book was especially interesting because few novels focus on the lives of families such as these, as well as the war in Syria. I recommend this book for those that are interested in gaining a deeper understanding on these topics.

Older Brother is an interesting study of what it is to be a Muslim in modern day France.

The two brothers have Syrian heritage but moved to France many years before the current Syrian conflict. Their father is an atheist communist, and they have French Breton ancestry on their mother's side. So in fact, the two brothers are only Muslim through people's assumptions rather than their own upbringing. However, this is enough to create a distance between them and their French neighbours.

The older brother drives for Uber. His father has invested his pension fund into an official taxi licence and has to sit watching helplessly as the Uber wave washes away the value of the official licences. The younger brother is a trained nurse who has volunteered with a shadowy NGO to offer healthcare to embattled Muslim populations around the world. Perhaps he is in Syria.

The story foll0ws the brothers as they reunite in Paris - the younger brother having fled from Raqqa after finding the Islamic dream was really a nightmare. But France does not welcome returning jihadists, suspecting that many are sleeper agents pursuing a suicide-terror agenda.

The novel explores themes of conflicted loyalties - the loyalty to a brother or to a state; loyalty to a heritage or to a future. There are questions of trust; how far can you trust someone when their story keeps changing? Is this someone gradually coming clean or someone further obfuscating? And as older brother is expected to side with the state and the law, he finds that the state and the law do not reciprocate.

The story is compelling and complex. The pacing, however, starts off quite slowly. There are parts of the older brother's voice that feel quite clunky and it isn't clear whether this is supposed to reflect a narrator who is not completely comfortable speaking French or whether it is a sign of poor translation from French to English. Overall, though, these are minor considerations in a novel that is readable, suspenseful and addresses important and current social issues.

It took me a while to get into this book with the shifting storyline and at times I thought it was going to be a fairly obvious plot. I am glad I stuck with it as although the underlying plot was fairly obvious throughout, it was the relationships and past experiences that led to the current events which were challenging for the reader and thought provoking.

Thanks for letting me review this book.

The 'thing' about this book is the voice of Older Brother (unnamed until the very end). It's vibrant and alive, as it veers from memories of petty drugs crimes to long days as an Uber driver, as it recomposes a French-Syrian family: the lovably irascible Syrian communist father who gave up his doctorate when he fell in love with a Breton woman, most of all the narrator's younger brother - dreamy, spiritual, who dreams of helping people, who leaves his job as a hospital nurse to become a medic in Syria...

Beautifully written, merging philosophical asides with an indictment of our profits-driven gig economy, throwing light on issues of class and politicised identity, of violence and war, while having a snarky, sharp sense of ironic humour, this is a rich book, absolutely contemporary, but also touching on perennial topics: family, brotherhood, loyalty, failure - even storytelling.

As for the ending... I don't want to say anything as it would be a spoiler - but I'll be very interested in what others think.

Emotive, involving, thoughtful, pitch-perfect in its voices, and sophisticated enough to embrace complexity - this deals with big, hard, 'now' politics with insight, compassion and heart.
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An emotionally raw, intense novel that has a great deal to say about immigration and integration, modern working conditions in western Europe (gig employment) as well as the conflict in Syria. We are introduced to a Syrian father, an atheist opponent of the regime who emigrated to France as a young man, married a Breton woman and fathered two boys (half Syrian, half French, their integration into French society is never very secure). She died during their childhood and since then their father has supported them by driving a taxi, an occupation now threatened by platforms such as Uber. Ironically the elder son has started driving for this very company and through his narration we see just how precarious a living it is. The younger son is a hospital nurse, disillusioned and unfulfilled, and looking to do more with his life he is attracted both to religion and to the idea of working for a humanitarian aid agency. He goes off the radar for years until one day his brother thinks he sees him in a Paris railway station. Why would he return without contacting them - would his return be a good or a bad thing?

The narration alternates between the two brothers - the younger brother’s experiences in Syria and the older brother’s life as an Arab in a France feeling threatened by terrorist attacks. The latter can apply equally to Arabs in other European countries, like the UK, but in France there is the added nuance of the perceived difference between Middle Eastern Arabs and the many Arabs from north African countries. As an example of the quality of the writing and insights in this book:

‘He was an Arab, Moroccan, fortyish or so, and I told him to cut it out with the French, which calmed him down like I knew it would, because there’s nothing worse than talking to a Maghrebi in French. It reminds them of colonialism, and makes them feel like they’re imitating their former oppressors. Anyway, after that he gritted his teeth and started listening to me. I didn’t even have to say anything much; he could read all my doubts and anxieties in my face: Syria, ISIS, the Islamic State. Terrorist. Words of fear. We didn’t even need to say them anymore; they hovered like bees in the air; you couldn’t see them but you could feel them, flying and stinging invisibly, landing on brains in flower to feed off the pistil, make honey, and take it back to the desert.’

The atmosphere is tense throughout as the brothers’ loyalties are tested, just a wrong word can lead to disaster. I worried throughout about whether the family would survive. I’m sure the ending will divide opinion and I look forward to reading others’ views, but it seemed fitting to me. I can scarcely believe this novel is the author’s first, can’t recommend it highly enough and shall urge all my friends to read it.

Sometimes we need to turn to fine literature to try to make sense and gain an understanding of the motivation and circumstances of those involved in what we see from our perspective as nihilistic and irrational violent behaviour. In this regard one might immediately think of Conrad's the Secret Agent or Updike's Terrorist. Now exploring multiple themes that include alienation, identity, integration, loyalty and finding a sense of self worth we have Mahir Guven's powerful and disturbing first novel which although set in France poses questions that effect a number of western countries.

The story is told from the the perspectives of two brothers, Older and Younger who are part of a Franco-Syrian family who's atheist communist father left Syria in the 1980's after being maimed and tortured. Their mother who was a Breton died suddenly while the brothers were children leaving a large void in their lives. The older brother like his father becomes a taxi driver but unlike him he is now part of the Uber gig economy which pitches him on the opposite side to his father driving his traditional taxi. Also the older brother has been entrapped as a police informer.

The younger brother works as a nurse in a French hospital and has turned to religion (interestingly the first steps were made through the Catholicism of his Breton grandmother) and finding alienation in the world around him now volunteers for a Muslim humanitarian organisation to help wounded civilians in the Syrian conflict. Once in Syria he quickly becomes attached to a Jihadist group, performing the role of a doctor although not qualified or trained to perform the tasks undertaken.

Finally after several years absence without any news the older brother spots the younger brother returning to Paris and as more of the story unfolds we see the transformation the younger brother has undergone (or has he?). There is humour and irony here together with a deep sense of foreboding as we reach the dramatic finale. This is not only a gripping read but also wonderfully insightful which I hope gains a wide readership.