Ibrahim al- Koni Libros

The Fetishists, originally published in Arabic as Al Majus, is considered the masterpiece of Ibrahim al-Koni, one of the most prolific and important writers in Arabic today. In The Fetishists, Al-Koni explores what happens when a writer asks the novel to speak of and for the Sahara, when rival cultures clash, and when communities seek to build a utopia on Earth as individuals struggle between a desire for material well-being (represented by gold dust) and a need for spiritual meaning. As the story opens, Sultan Oragh of Timbuktu, who has already lost most of his power to Fetishist Bambara leaders of the forestlands, fears he will lose his only daughter, Tenere, as a human sacrifice to their god Amnay. The sultan sends Tenere to seek refuge with fellow Tuareg nomads in the plain. But even in their traditional, nomadic community, a competition rages between jihadi militant Islam; moderate Anhi Islam, which is the ancient Tuareg Law; and the cults of gold dust and of traditional African folk religions. In this epic novel, Al-Koni blends Tuareg folklore and history with intense, fond descriptions of daily life in the desert, creating a mirror for life anywhere. Through its tragic rendering of a clash between the Tuareg and traditional African civilizations, the novel profoundly probes the contradictions of the human soul as it takes the reader on a unique spiritual adventure inside the Tuareg world.

International Booker Prize finalist and "one of the Arab world's most innovative novelists" (Roger Allen) delivers a brilliant retelling of the Muslim wars of conquest in North Africa The year is 693 and a tense exchange, mediated by an interpreter, takes place between Berber warrior queen al-Kahina and an emissary from the Umayyad General Hassan ibn Nu'man. Her predecessor had been captured and killed by the Umayyad forces some years earlier, but she will go on to defeat Ibn Nu'man's forces. The Night Will Have Its Say is a retelling of the Muslim wars of conquest in North Africa during the seventh century CE, narrated from the perspective of the conquered peoples. Written in Ibrahim al-Koni's unique and enchanting voice, his lyrical and deeply poetic prose speaks to themes that are intensely timely. Through the wars and conflicts of this distant, turbulent era, he addresses the futility of war, the privilege of an elite few at the expense of the many, the destruction of natural habitats and indigenous cultures, and questions about literal and fundamentalist interpretations of religious texts. Al-Koni's masterly account of conquest and resistance is both timeless and timely, infused with a sense of disaster and exile--from language, the desert, and homeland.

Upon the death of their leader, a group of Tuareg, a nomadic Berber community whose traditional homeland is the Sahara Desert, turns to the heir dictated by tribal custom; however, he is a poet reluctant to don the mantle of leadership.

The tale of one man's quest and survival in the Sahara Desert, set in the framework of Tuareg mythology

"Imagine Cormac McCarthy's savage lyricism in a Paul Bowles desert landscape and you begin to enter the bleakly beautiful world of this mesmerizing, fable-like novel."--The Independent 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. 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 Libyan 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.