The narrator of The Zahir is a bestselling novelist who lives in Paris and enjoys all the privileges that money and celebrity bring. His wife of ten years, Esther, is a war correspondent who, despite her professional success and freedom from the conventional constraints of marriage, is facing an existential crisis. When she disappears along with a friend, Mikhail, who may or may not be her lover, the authorities question the narrator.

Was Esther kidnapped, killed, or did she simply abandon a marriage that left her unfulfilled? Then one day Mikhail, the man with whom Esther was last seen, finds the narrator and promises to take him to his wife. A haunting and redemptive story about the dark side of obsession, The Zahir explores its potential to both fulfill our dreams and to destroy them.

It is also a thoughtful meditation on faith, celebrity, marriage -- and their relationships to freedom and creativity.