Published in 2008, Cockroach is the second novel by Lebanese-Canadian author Rawi Hage. The novel is a dark comedy which draws on Hage's own background as a Lebanese immigrant living in Montreal.
Hage was born in Beirut and grew up there during the tumultuous years of the Lebanese Civil War. Atlthough he currently identifies as a secularist, he was raised Christian, and was exposed to the deep divide between Muslim and Christian Arabs from an early age. Due to the religious segregation in Beirut at the time, his first real contact with Muslims wasn't until age 16, on a trip to visit family in Cyprus. His father's Jesuit background, however, did benefit Hage in some ways--because his father was well-read, he was surrounded by books at home, and became an avid reader. He has also referred to his mother as being "open to a multiplicity of views", which may have influenced his later socio-political perspectives.
Hage moved to New York City in the early 1980s. There, he struggled for many years, making ends meet by working a series of low-paying, menial jobs. English was his third language (after Arabic and French), and his heavy accent--in addition to his ethnicity--led him to experience racism for the first time. Eventually, he took on a photography job and discovered a fondness for photography, which led him to move to Montreal in order ot pursue an education in Photography/Fine and Visual Arts.
In Montreal, Hage also worked as a cabdriver before the publication of his first book, De Niro's Game. After its publication, Hage quit cabdriving to become a full-time writer, but remained in contact with his "old taxi-driver friends", who he considers to be better storyteller than those he meets at writer's meetups.
Although he is not as much of an activist as he once was, Hage continues to write about the immigrant experience, and enjoys the cosmopolitan nature of his neighborhood (Mile End) and of Montreal overall. He is passionate about the anti-globalization movement and is in a common-law partnership with Chinese-Canadian author Madeleine Thien.
Cockroach, like Hage's other novels, was met with critical acclaim following its publication. In 2014, it was selected for CBC Radio's Canada Reads and defended by famous Canadian comedian, Samantha Bee. It was shortlisted for the Giller Prize, the Governor General's Award and the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize and won the 2008 Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction.
