Gold Dust: A Modern Arabic Novel (Modern Arabic Literature) (Modern Arabic Literature (Hardcover)) - Hardcover

Ibrahim Al-Koni

3.87

1,939 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 9774161432 ISBN 13: 9789774161438

Publisher: The American University in Cairo Press, 2008

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This is a Libyan novel of the Sahara Desert from the author of "Anubis".Rejected by his tribe and hunted by the kin of the man he killed, Ukhayyad and his thoroughbred camel flee across the desolate Tuareg deserts of the Sahara. Between bloody wars against the Italians in the north and famine raging in the south, Ukhayyad rides for the remote rock caves of Jebel Hasawna. There, he says farewell to the mount who has been his companion through thirst, disease, lust, and loneliness. Alone in the desert, haunted by the prophetic cave paintings of ancient hunting scenes and the cries of jinn in the night, Ukhayyad awaits the arrival of his pursuers and their insatiable hunger for blood and gold. "Gold Dust" is a classic story of the brotherhood between man and beast, the thread of companionship that is all the difference between life and death in the desert. It is a story of the fight to endure in a world of limitless and waterless wastes, and a parable of the struggle to survive in the most dangerous landscape of all: human society.

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Review:

“In Gold Dust [al-Koni] takes us on a unique journey deep into the desert, an environment whose detailed and exquisite depiction he has made very much his own... This excellent translation now joins the as yet small repertoire of works in English translation by one of Arabic fiction’s most original voices.” —Roger Allen

“A true journey into the human psyche.’ (Cairo Magazine )

“The desert setting is al-Koni’s strength: its expanse, desolation, and mystery are powerfully evoked.’ (Margaret Obank, Banipal )

“Al-Koni’s novels are aesthetic renderings of the passions of the desert and of the rich legends and cosmology of his people. An encyclopaedic writer who has digested mythologies of the ancient world and literature of the modern world, al-Koni has both a poetic bent and a mystical inclination.” (Ferial Ghazoul Al Ahram Weekly )

About the Author:

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 Anubis was published by the AUC Press in 2005, and another novel, The Bleeding of the Stone, has also appeared in English. ELLIOTT COLLA teaches comparative literature at Brown University. He is the author of Conflicted Antiquities and the translator of The Heron by Ibrahim Aslan (AUC Press, 2005) and Poor by Idris Ali (AUC Press, 2007).

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