---
product_id: 9401625
title: "Cockroach: A Novel Paperback – October 25, 2010"
brand: "rawi hage"
price: "$120549"
currency: COP
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 6
url: https://www.desertcart.co/products/9401625-cockroach-a-novel-paperback-october-25-2010
store_origin: CO
region: Colombia
---

# Cockroach: A Novel Paperback – October 25, 2010

**Brand:** rawi hage
**Price:** $120549
**Availability:** ✅ In Stock

## Quick Answers

- **What is this?** Cockroach: A Novel Paperback – October 25, 2010 by rawi hage
- **How much does it cost?** $120549 with free shipping
- **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship
- **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.co](https://www.desertcart.co/products/9401625-cockroach-a-novel-paperback-october-25-2010)

## Best For

- rawi hage enthusiasts

## Why This Product

- Trusted rawi hage brand quality
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## Description

Full description not available

## Images

![Cockroach: A Novel Paperback – October 25, 2010 - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71FIJr0frvL.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Vivid
*by K***K on August 12, 2017*

His images pop with magic. He captures the experience of immigrants and refugees - raw, real transformations. The writer's ability to capture complexity and distill it into a potent story is inspiring.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Cockroach: An Anti-hero of Heroic Proportion
*by S***K on August 29, 2009*

Turning the last page of this book I felt like standing up, dusting myself off as best as possible, and heading for a long, hot, cleansing shower. The book was far more of a challenge than a pleasure. If Rawi Hage's down in the dirt novel, Cockroach, had been written poorly and/or was without merit, it would have been satisfying to use a blowtorch instead of a pen to write a review. Hage didn't give me that luxury: he knows how to write, and Cockroach is a work of both integrity and value.The protagonist, more anti-hero than hero, is a nameless (occasionally referred to as "kid") member of that part of the Montreal immigrant community that hangs on by its economic finger nails. Told in the first person, our guide takes us on a gritty, grimy, insect-ridden, violence-prone, sexual, crime-laden tour of roughly one frozen winter month in the life of the members of this community. Our protagonist remains so anonymous, so sub-surface, so invisible, as he moves through this environment that his existence approximates (and in his own mind becomes) that of a cockroach. Even his therapist (assigned to our anti-hero compulsorily after his suicide attempt) doesn't address him by name, and his musician friend Reza sums up our anti-hero/cockroach's worth in this way: "I give something in return" (Reza continued) "while you are nothing but a petty thief with no talent. All you can do is make the fridge light go on and off, and once the door is closed you're never sure if the light inside has turned to darkness, like your own dim soul". And if that's how your friends think about you....The reader will be tempted to react to our anti-hero's actions and viewpoints with disgust, condescension, and possibly anger. Be prepared for the fact that our protagonist's reaction to the comfortable, self-satisfied, shallow, hyper-precious life of the culturally pretentious is no less negative, and much more severe.And yet, as difficult a read as it was for me, I found much more in Hage's writing than a simple counter-cultural rant, more than a morbid examination of the squalid, more than simple self-loathing. Strands of integrity, wisps of human feeling, threads of the ability to experience and give love, weave a potent ending to the tale of Cockroach.Rawi Hage's book is an exploration of one part of Montreal's sociological crawl space. Crawl spaces are nasty. In my Central Oregon location, my rare descents into the crawl space beneath my house are unpleasant encounters with large spiders, the occasional scorpion, the skittering sound of sage rats running off, and scattered animal droppings. The dirt I crawl over as I dodge plumbing and floor beams is laced with volcanic rock that skins my knees even through my clothing. When I emerge, I'm covered with dirt, scratched up, and happy to be breathing clean air in the light of day. Emerging from the experience of reading Cockroach, I'm guessing that many readers will metaphorically feel the same way.What fuels the rage that surfaces so frequently in this book? One passage suggests that Rawi Hage's survival of nine years of the Lebanese civil war is a source: "At the first sip of beer, the first fries, I forget and forgive humanity for its stupidity, its foulness, its avarice and greed, envy, lust gluttony, sloth, wrath, and anger. I forgive it for its contaminated spit, its valued feces, its rivers of piss, its bombs, all its bad dancing. I also forget about the bonny infants with the African flies clustering on their noses, the marching drunk soldiers on the way to whorehouses. I forget about my mother and my father, the lightless nights I spent with my sister playing cards, dressing up toy soldiers, and undressing dolls by candlelight, reading comics."For a fascinating contrast to Hage's story, read Tracy Kidder's Strength in What Remains, the non-fiction account of a survivor of the Tutsi genocide who ends up scratching for survival in New York's own down and out immigrant community.This book is not for light consumption, and not for book clubs that like their books high in entertainment and low on literary crawl spaces. Literary spelunkers, and those who enjoy the heights of human existence the more for having visited the depths: forge ahead.

### ⭐⭐⭐ ok read
*by M***E on January 11, 2014*

I found the story a bit difficult to follow and the ending very abruptI doubt I would read any other works from this author, the style of writing does not suit my taste

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*Product available on Desertcart Colombia*
*Store origin: CO*
*Last updated: 2026-02-19*