New Waw, Saharan Oasis (Modern Middle Eastern Literatures in Translation Series) (CMES Modern Middle East Literatures in Translation)

by Ibrahim al-Koni (Author), William M. Hutchins (Translator)

New
Illustrated
2014
$29.03

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.

Synopsis

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.

$29.03

Quantity

20+ in stock

More Information

Format: Illustrated
Pages: 166
Edition: Illustrated
Publisher: Center for Middle Eastern Studies, University of Texas at Austin
Published: 15 Jan 2014
ISBN 10: 0292754752
ISBN 13: 9780292754751

Media Reviews

So too, perhaps, the tales in New Waw are purely experiential, without some coded meaning, offering a taste of that desert beyond the Law. This is writing in a different light, offering a view of a new horizon * Rain Taxi *

Author Bio

Ibrahim al-Koni is an award-winning Libyan writer and one of the most prolific Arabic novelists. He has published more than eighty books, which have been translated into thirty-five languages. In 2015, Al-Koni was shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize. William M. Hutchins is a professor at Appalachian State University. He won the American Literary Translators Association National Prose Translation Award in 2015 for Ibrahim al-Koni's novel New Waw.