Lebanon, 1860. The Maronite Christians rise up against the Druze feudal lords. The civil war ends with the intervention of European powers. The Druze, although victorious, are punished for their actions with exile and imprisonment in the notorious dungeons of Belgrade, at the far end of the then Ottoman Empire that covered the entire Eastern Mediterranean. Among the detainees are the five sons of Sheikh Gafar Ezedin. Only one of them will escape, Suleiman, as an unsuspecting man, a Christian egg seller from Beirut who went out to earn a living but got caught in the midst of an uncontrollable disaster, takes his place in an unexpected way. This is the story of Hana Yakoub, the wife of Hilana Constantine Yakoub and their daughter Barbara. It is the suffering of this small family and the hardships they endured because of the misfortune of that man with the mediocre stature and the stern face, the black eyes and hair - the one who found himself selling his eggs in the wrong place, at the wrong time. The award-winning novel by a captivating representative of contemporary Arabic literature.