One could be terse, The Lazarus Project by Aleksander Hemon is his most complete work to date. That doesn't quite capture the grasp of Hemon's which isn't simply a paean to exile like some latter Joyce, or a burgeoning Conrad, discovering mastery in an adopted tongue. No, Hemon succeeds in keeping his gaze on the spilled entrails of History. Akin in this to Gary Shteyngart's Absurdistan, Hemon traces the trajectory of empires and finds continuity in the marginalized. The pastiche of names shared across the centuries is but one jewelled aspect of the Lazarus Project; the willingness to admit the difficulties of assimilation into throes of First World sentimentality is another. The protagonist can be moved to pummel a human trafficker as well as he can remain opaque to Thanksgiving as an organic concept and custom.