Event Horizon

An oneiric saga of resistance and exile set in space

Seventeen-year-old Milde is from the Outskirts, a place beyond the mountains with corpse-rich soil, where mothers and daughters make their living banished from society--without rights, access to care, or legal status. But Milde refuses to accept the order of things, so one day, together with some friends, she throws Molotov cocktails at the urban planning office in the city.

When Milde is framed as the instigator of the riot, she is arrested, imprisoned, tortured, and eventually presented with a final choice: to be executed publicly or to be launched into space, into a black hole called the Mass, for an experiment. Milde chooses the Mass--opting to face its fathomless depth and loneliness rather than hurt the morale of her weary allies back home.

Event Horizon is an exquisite existential novel, dark as deep space, woven with reflection on oppression, solidarity, trauma, and loss. With a completely unique voice, Balsam Karam writes about the swirl of hope and despair in the lives of the marginalized and a young woman's unwavering belief in a better world.