"Walid Masoud disappears. A Palestinian intellectual, he has been living in Baghdad since the first Israeli War of 1948. As a member of an organization engaged in the armed struggle against Israel, suspicion arises that he has gone underground as part of a political movement. Masoud leaves behind a lengthy but disconnected tape recording of garbled utterances through which Jabra Ibrahim Jabra artfully crafts the basis for the narration.

He transforms the transcription of the tape by each of Masoud's comrades into a study of character. Through a series of monologues, each becomes a narrator of his own experience."--BOOK JACKET.