Description
Book SynopsisA Tuareg youth ventures into trackless desert on a life-threatening quest to find the father he remembers only as a shadow from his childhood, but the spirit world frustrates and tests his resolve. For a time, he is rewarded with the Eden of a lost oasis, but eventually, as new settlers crowd in, its destiny mimics the rise of human civilization. The Libyan Tuareg author Ibrahim al-Koni, who has earned a reputation as a major figure in Arabic literature with his many novels and collections of short stories, has used Tuareg folklore about Anubis, the ancient Egyptian god of the underworld, to craft a novel that is both a lyrical evocation of the desert's beauty and a chilling narrative in which thirst, incest, patricide, animal metamorphosis, and human sacrifice are more than plot devices. In this novel, fantastic mythology becomes universal, specific, and modern.
Trade Review"a true journey into the human psyche." - Cairo Magazine "The desert setting is al-Koni's strength: its expanse, desolation and mystery is powerfully evoked." - Margaret Obank, BANIPAL No. 23, Summer 2005
