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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. 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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Gold dust (Paperback)
Ibrahim Al-Koni
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R399
R304
Discovery Miles 3 040
Save R95 (24%)
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Ships in 12 - 17 working days
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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.
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.
The Libyan landscape is one of the most diverse and breathtaking,
replete with barren deserts, vast ocean coasts, and a stunning
display of earth's elements. Al-Koni, an award-winning and
critically acclaimed Arabic writer, reflects on this fragile
environment and the increasing threats to its existence in A
Sleepless Eye, a collection of the poet's desert wisdom. He
highlights the relationships between humans and Libya's natural
features, grouping them by theme: nature, desert, water, sea, wind,
rock, trees, and fire. Each theme contains a set of aphorisms that
deliver thoughtful perspectives on what it means to coexist with an
evolving planet. This volume is the result of the author's
collaboration with the celebrated French nature photographer, Alain
Sebe, and English translator Allen. The product is a body of work
that calls upon readers to question their relationship with the
earth through meditative ideas and photos, familiarising English
readers with the fundamental philosophies of environmental
stewardship that transcend all boundaries.
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Myth And Landscape (Hardcover)
Marina Warner, Ibrahim Al-Koni; Photographs by David Parker
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R1,221
R979
Discovery Miles 9 790
Save R242 (20%)
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Ships in 12 - 17 working days
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Winner, National Translation Award, American Literary Translators
Association, 2015 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.
Forced by tribal elders to abandon not only his poetry but his
love, who is also a poet, he reluctantly serves as leader. Whether
by human design or the meddling of the Spirit World, his death
inspires his tribe to settle down permanently, abandoning not only
nomadism but also the inherited laws of the tribe. The community
they found, New Waw, which they name for the mythical paradise of
the Tuareg people, is also the setting of Ibrahim al-Koni’s
companion novel, The Puppet. For al-Koni, this Tuareg tale of the
tension between nomadism and settled life represents a choice faced
by people everywhere, in many walks of life, as a result of
globalism. He sees an inevitable interface between myth and
contemporary life.
The Scarecrow is the final volume of Ibrahim al-Koni's Oasis
trilogy, which chronicles the founding, flourishing, and decline of
a Saharan oasis. Fittingly, this continuation of a tale of greed
and corruption opens with a meeting of the conspirators who
assassinated the community's leader at the end of the previous
novel, The Puppet. They punished him for opposing the use of gold
in business transactions-a symptom of a critical break with their
nomadic past-and now they must search for a leader who shares their
fetishistic love of gold. A desert retreat inspires the group to
select a leader at random, but their "choice," it appears, is not
entirely human. This interloper from the spirit world proves a
self-righteous despot, whose intolerance of humanity presages
disaster for an oasis besieged by an international alliance. Though
al-Koni has repeatedly stressed that he is not a political author,
readers may see parallels not only to a former Libyan ruler but to
other tyrants-past and present-who appear as hollow as a scarecrow.
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The Puppet (Paperback)
Ibrahim Al-Koni; Translated by William M. Hutchins
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R547
Discovery Miles 5 470
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Ships in 10 - 15 working days
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The Puppet, a mythic tale of greed and political corruption,
traces the rise, flourishing, and demise of a Saharan oasis
community. Aghulli, a noble if obtuse man who has been chosen
leader of the oasis, hankers after the traditional nomadic
pastoralist life of the Tuareg. He sees commerce (understood as
including trade in gold, marriage, agriculture, and even
recreation) as the prime culprit in the loss of the nomadic ethos.
Thus he is devastated to learn that his supporters are hoarding
gold.
The novel's title notwithstanding, the author has stressed
repeatedly that he is not a political author. He says that The
Puppet portrays a good man who has been asked to lead a corrupt
society. The subplot about star-crossed young lovers introduces a
Sufi theme of the possibility of transforming carnal into mystical
love. The Puppet, though, is first and foremost a gripping,
expertly crafted tale of bloody betrayal and revenge inspired by
gold lust and an ancient love affair.
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