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Translated works can be cumbersome to read. The translator has a colossal job of getting ideas and thought along with words from one culture to another. The Arabic culture is different in many ways from American culture. Translator Leri Price is the amazing translator of author Khaled Khalifa’s new novel “Death is Hard Work.�� This is a short novel, a mere 180 pages. Yet, each sentence is complex and full of information and nuances that requires careful reading and rereading. There is so much going on and communicated in this slip of a novel.

First, it takes place in Syria in the midst of a bloody and cruel civil war. Although it’s the backdrop of the story, it takes on a life of itself. Abdel Latif dies of old age in a hospital in Damascus. Before he dies, he makes his youngest son promise that he will be buried in his ancestral village of Anabiya, which is a couple of hours from Damascus. But, because Syria is under brutal warfare, and many roadblocks occur between the two places, this request is weighty.

Bolbol, the youngest son, enlists his older brother and his sister to help in the request. The three feel it’s their noble duty to get their father’s body to lay in rest in his requested spot. The horrors of the Syrian war are balanced by the absurdity of the war and of the journey. Khalifa deftly writes scenes that turns the readers stomach and makes the reader chuckle at the same time. Explosions, air raids, corps, decimated villages are in every page. But the siblings find problems at every roadblock. For instance, their father has an arrest warrant issued and the soldiers take the body into custody. The siblings expect the soldiers will be reverent and impressed that they are carrying out a duty; yet it’s pointed out that it’s rare that someone dies of old age.

As the siblings journey to the village, the half day journey takes on days. Meanwhile the corpse is rotting, the stench is horrid, and it makes for sibling angst. Now the reader learns all the familial atrocities, real or imagined, that each one carries. It’s three days of airing dirty laundry and familial injustices. Khalifa uses these moments as humor fodder while the ambiance of the story is the horrific life of Syria.

This novel is a reminder of Syrian’s conflict. Syria has taken a back seat to other news, which doesn’t make it less newsworthy. Khalifa, through this family drama, makes the reader live through the moment to moment, day to day horrors. This novel will stay with me for a long time.