Get Free eBook Sample
Yousef Al-Mohaimeed was born in Riyadh in 1964. He has published several novels and short story collections in Arabic and has had stories published in Lebanon, Egypt, France, Germany, Spain, and Russia. He studied English and photography at Norwich University in England and was recently presented with an award by Diwan al Arab magazine and the Egyptian Journalists Union in recognition of his creative contribution to Arab culture. He lives in Riyadh.
Anthony Calderbank is the translator of Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz’s novel Rhadopis of Nubia, Sonallah Ibrahim’s Zaat, and Miral al-Tahawy’s The Tent and Blue Aubergine. He lives in Khobar, Saudi Arabia.
From the Trade Paperback edition.
Wolves of the Crescent Moon
eBook
$10.99
$11.99
| Save 8%
-
ISBN-13:
9781101202159
- Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
- Publication date: 12/18/2007
- Sold by: Penguin Group
- Format: eBook
- Pages: 192
- File size: 262 KB
- Age Range: 18 Years
What People are Saying About This
Available on NOOK devices and apps
Want a NOOK? Explore Now
10.99
In Stock
“The first great Saudi novel.” —The New York Sun
Banned in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, this provocative, fast-paced debut novel confirms what The Washington Post reported about its award-winning author: "Yousef Al-Mohaimeed is taking on some of the most divisive subjects in the Arab world . . . in a lush style that evokes Gabriel García Márquez."
In a Riyadh bus station, a man comes across a file containing official reports about an abandoned baby. As he pieces together the shattered life documented within, a larger picture emerges of three outsiders—a Bedouin, an orphan, and a eunuch-linked by fate and trying to make lives for themselves in a predatory city.
Unfolding with the intensity of a fever dream over the course of one night, Wolves of the Crescent Moon is a novel of astonishing power and great moral consequence about a deeply traditional society confronting the modern world.
From the Trade Paperback edition.
Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought
-
- The Means of Escape
- by Penelope Fitzgerald
-
- Difficult Loves
- by Italo CalvinoWilliam WeaverAnn Goldstein
-
- Nine Below Zero
- by Kevin Canty
-
- The Suitcase: A Novel
- by Sergei Dovlatov
-
- The Man from Beyond: A Novel
- by Gabriel Brownstein
-
- The Problems of Philosophy
- by Bertrand Russell
-
- Wrinkles: A Novel
- by Charles Simmons
-
- The 6:41 to Paris
- by Jean-Philippe BlondelAlison Anderson
Recently Viewed
Publishers Weekly
Three tales of Arab outcasts make up this fresh-voiced debut novel by Saudi Arabian author Al-Mohaimeed. A one-eared Bedouin tribesman named Turad quits his humiliating 13-year job as a low-level ministry servant and ends up at the Riyadh bus station with a plan to flee, but no destination in mind. While he figures out where he wants to go, two additional voices join the narrative. One is the memory of Turad's elderly co-worker at the ministry, Tawfiq, whose sad story begins when he was a child and his Sudanese village was attacked by slave traders. Tawfiq was later captured, raped, castrated and performed the services of a eunuch until he grew too old to be of use. The other voice is from a discarded official file Turad finds at the bus station. It involves a one-eyed orphan named Nasir, who is sexually abused by the staff at the orphanage where he grows up and is eventually denied his ambition of becoming a soldier. Al-Mohaimeed's work, assisted by Calderbank's faultless translation, beautifully captures the frustrations and resentments of his tormented characters. (Jan.)Copyright 2007 Reed Business InformationLibrary Journal
In his short, poetic debut, Saudia Arabian-born Al-Mohaimeed explores the lives of three misfits in his native country's capital of Riyadh. First, there is Turad, a Bedouin who lost an ear; next is Tawfik, a former Sudanese slave who was castrated; and finally, Nasir, an orphan who is missing one eye. As Turad, who was fired from his job after being humiliated at work, sits in the bus station, trying to buy a ticket to anywhere, he contemplates their lives, which have intersected at various times. Myths-like the story of a young woman impregnated by the moon after she hung her underwear to dry by its light or the tale of rival Bedouin thieves wrestling until they become like brothers-meld with the realities of the underbelly of society in Saudi Arabia, where Al-Mohaimeed's protagonists have no status and little opportunity. His exploration of men who have lost pieces of themselves yet struggle to survive swirls with a richness of language and imagery. Banned in Saudi Arabia and deserving of a large audience, it is recommended for most literary fiction collections.—Andrea Kempf
Kirkus Reviews
A modern-day Three Wise Monkeys, Al-Mohaimeed's novel, banned in Saudi Arabia, concerns a trio of disabled Saudis who accidentally converge in Riyadh and tell their stories. This is the author's first book-length U.S. publication. Turad, a Bedouin missing an ear, waits in a Riyadh bus station not knowing where he is going, but only that he must escape his current "hell," perhaps find a hell of a different name. He recalls, in spurts, the details of his life-his father's grief when his older brother ran away with a gypsy girl, his foray into highway robbery to bring money home to his family, his shame about his ear and his stilted, humiliating career as a servant in a ministry office. While half-heartedly trying to decide upon a destination, he discovers an old government file that someone has left, which chronicles in legal terms the life of another misfit, a young man orphaned and mutilated as an infant, leaving him with one eye. The baby, who received the government-issued name Nasir, was placed in an orphanage, where he was arguably sexually abused by a Filipino caretaker, before being rejected by the armed forces. Nasir's story stirs Turad's memory, and he recalls the stories of a former colleague, a Sudanese man named Amm Tawfiq, who had once been a driver for the palace and spoke of Nasir. Like Turad and Nasir, Amm Tawfiq is also missing something essential-as a younger man, he was tricked by a group of slave traders, and after a long and arduous journey with them, was viciously raped and castrated. Seemingly the most life-altering of the three wounds, the castration appears to affect Amm Tawfiq less profoundly than the other two are affected by their traumas. In each case, though,mutilation becomes an effective frame for conveying the characters' collective pain and solitude. A subtle exploration of loss.