Ibrahim al-Koni

"I tell you. Be patient. How can you live in the desert without patience? The man who was never granted its contentment will never be happy there. I tell you. Use patience and cunning, they're the secrets of the desert...."

"Only through dust will the son of Adam be filled."

This little book was translated from Arabic, the author was born in the Fezzan region of Libya and grew up in the Sahara desert, only learning to read and write when he was 12. Al-Koni is of the Tuareg people, a Berber group who traditionally live a semi-nomadic life and are sometimes called “the blue people” because of the indigo dyed clothing they wear which stains their skin. He was a finalist for the Man Booker International Prize in 2015 (for his work in general).

This story, set presumably in the 1930s and 40s, is about Asouf, a shepherd who grows up in the desert isolation of Massak Satfak in the Hasawna Mountains, in Fezzan, the southern province of Libya. His job is also to be guardian of the Wadi Matkhandoush with its mysterious cave art that his parents tell him was made by the jinn. He also is the self appointed protector of the waddan (the moufflon) a breed of wild mountain sheep which can stand up to 110cm tall at the shoulder. According to the book, it is the oldest animal in the Sahara and came to extinction in Europe In the 17th century. The story comes to a climax when greedy men come to his part of the desert trying to find gazelle that they have shot almost to extinction and determined to find the mysterious waddan. This book reads like a Bedouin folk tale, blending mysticism, Sufism, Islam, the Old Testament, and traditional beliefs. It has a strong environmental message and paints a picture of life in the desert. I found it to be somewhat mysterious but a short, not unpleasant read.



… (más)

A completely and totally different work than New Waw, which was the first book of his that I read. That book was dense, not easy to follow (for me), and a genuine challenge—although I enjoyed it a great deal. Symbolic, mythic, indirect…and compelling. This one, however, is apparently his first book and it reads like a very straightforward, easy-to-read, story. The story weaves elements of nomadic life in the remote deserts of Libya with Sufism, mysticism, traditional beliefs, as well as environmental issues. As someone on goodreads wrote, al-Koni argues that “the natural world and humans share a common soul; and that in destroying the natural world we destroy ourselves. Al-Koni creates this common soul by depicting a world in which the boundary between nature and humans is porous.” Accurate, I think. But for a thin volume, he manages to provide a great deal of food for thought. If you’ve never read al-Koni before, this is a good entry point.… (más)

At the heart of the novel is a fundamental (insufficiently established) assumption. Deep into the novel it lingered…unanswered…. indeed, it remained a prohibitive question. A good example of why translated fiction must overcome a higher literary threshold.

a note to the editors: a book like this, because it is so atypical of the culture it bespeaks, may require a cultural note or disclaimer, for example, that the book is set in an 'isolated' 'nomadic' community not representative of the wider region of origin; or that it is entirely fictional etc. The current formal translation of that community is "Berber" in English. Arabic, the language from which it is translated recognizes that label as derogatory, that information is essential to an accurate understanding of the story. The only such indication available in the 2020 edition is The Independent's endorsement quote comparing the work to McCarthy, who's Blood Meridian includes graphic, some would say, gratuitous violence, a discernment the average international reader should not be expected to make, it's too wide a gap to bridge without the translator's guidance.… (más)