What a great novel! The Offering is alternatively painful and exalting, inferno-like and redemptive, traumatic and sublime; but it is consistently beautiful. In this stunning and, finally, shocking novel, El Moncef’s prose rivals that of today’s most poetic wordsmiths. For me, The Offering reaches that horizon of stylistic excellence we find in a writer like John Banville. One is dazzled by the sheer virtuosity of the language, the structure, and the poetic rhythm as the reading experience evolves into a feeling so intense and delectable that one simply must pause to take it all in.
