'Puppets of Tyre'
A children's book by Max Dedik,
illustrations by Louay Daoust
​When in exchange for a midnight snack a cat shares a century-old secret, an extraordinary statuette is salvaged from under a rock off the coast of Lebanon's Tyre. Under the hot rays of the Mediterranean Sun it soon comes alive and tells an extraordinary tale of its past when it had served as a mechanical spy alongside five other puppets for Tanith, the supreme priestess of Tyre, thousands of years ago.
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An island back then, Tyre was the most fabulous place on earth and the birthplace of Europe or Princess Ghouroub, who together with her brother Qadam find themselves at the heart of a battle between their father, the king, and the supreme priestess, who kept a tight grip over the entire city and its citizens. It is a victory celebrated too soon by the king when he believes to have taken the upper hand and banished the supreme priestess from Tyre.
Book Snapshots
​It's not just a piece of fiction. We have tried to recreate the ancient Tyre to the best of our imagination and the scarce facts known of its history: the clothes, the colours, the architecture. Tyre is one of the greatest Mysteries, and we hope our book will not only serve as a good read but also a channel to see it as it might have once been.