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English edition
Apr
2005
208 pp.
Hardbound
12.5X20 cm
$19.95
LE 90.00
ISBN
978 977 424 887 0
For sale worldwide
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Anubis
A Desert Novel
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Ibrahim al-Koni
Translated by
William M. Hutchins
The tale of one man’s quest and survival in the Sahara Desert, set in the framework of Tuareg mythology
A 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. Over the sands and the years, the hero is pursued by a lover who matures into a sibyl-like priestess. 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. The novel concludes with Tuareg sayings collected by the author in his search for the historical Anubis from matriarchs and sages during trips to Tuareg encampments, and from inscriptions in the ancient Tifinagh script in caves and on tattered manuscripts. In this novel, fantastic mythology becomes universal, specific, and modern.
Ibrahim al-Koni was born in Libya in 1948. A Tuareg who writes in Arabic, he spent his childhood in the desert and learned to read and write Arabic when he was twelve. He studied comparative literature at the Gorky Institute in Moscow and then worked as a journalist in Moscow and Warsaw. His novel The Bleeding of the Stone was published in English translation in 2002. In 2010, he received in Cairo the Arab Novel Award and dedicated the value of the prize to the children of the Tuareg tribes from which he originally hails.
William Maynard Hutchins, the principal translator of Naguib Mahfouz’s Cairo Trilogy (AUC Press 1990–92), has taught English, philosophy, Arabic, and Islamic Studies in Lebanon, Ghana, Egypt, and France. His most recent book is Tawfiq al-Hakim: A Reader’s Guide.
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Reviews
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“a true journey into the human psyche.”—Cairo Magazine
“The novel has many levels, all attempting to unravel the complexities of obligation and customs that delineate how relationships are made between father and son, mother and son, then brother and sister, and man and woman, and how these relationships can prosper and endure with man living in a changing society.” —Margaret Obank, BANIPAL No. 23, Summer 2005
“The desert setting is al-Koni’s strength: its expanse, desolation and mystery is powerfully evoked.” —Margaret Obank, BANIPAL No. 23, Summer 2005
“at once a personal story, the legend of a god-like mythical hero, a mystical tale of demons, dreams and metamorphosis, as well as a parable of human civilization” — Margaret Obank, BANIPAL No. 23, Summer 2005
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