Ibrahim al- Koni Book order

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.

"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.

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.

Einem arabischen Kritiker gilt "Das Herrscherkleid" als der vielleicht zornigste Angriff auf die politischen Systeme und ihre Repräsentanten, der sich in der neueren arabischen Literatur findet. Thema des neuen Romans von Ibrahim al-Koni ist die Macht und deren karzinogener Charakter: Sie deformiert den Menschen sowohl seelisch als auch körperlich; "Heilung" bringt nur der Tod. Gründlich wie kaum ein anderer erforscht al-Koni die Tyrannenseele und stellt die Wirkung von Macht auf deren Inhaber und die Reaktion seiner Umgebung auf dessen Gebaren dar. Dabei gelingt es dem Autor, die Debatte auf jeden Herrscher der Welt anwendbar zu machen und zugleich die mittelöstlichen Realitäten klar durchscheinen zu lassen: Der Potentat, der als Außenseiter durch den Boten des Führers in seine Funktion gehoben wird. Der Potentat, der sofort seine neue Stellung zur Austragung privater Fehden missbraucht. Der Potentat, der sich immer fester und unerbittlicher in seinem Amt einrichtet. Der Potentat, der zur Erfüllung persönlicher Wünsche und Eitelkeiten alle Regeln bricht und die Untertanen immer brutaler ausquetscht. Der Potentat schließlich, der erst durch den Tod von seinem Posten "abtritt".