Summary
As the 19th century draws to a close, the politically disgraced Mahmoud Abd El Zahir takes up his post as District Commissioner of the remote and dangerous Egyptian oasis of Siwa, knowing he has no choice. The hostile, warring natives are no surprise - but little did he expect to fall in love, his Irish wife to alienate the entire community, or a local beauty to prove a fatal ally. As the gulf between occupier and occupied, husband and wife, dreams and reality widens, tensions reach boiling point.
Author Notes
Bahaa Taher was born in 1935 in Cairo, Egypt. He was active in the country's left-wing literary circles of the 1960s and in the mid 1970s was prevented from publishing his work. After many years of exile in Switzerland, he has recently returned to Egypt. Now one of the most widely read novelists in the Arab world, Taher has received the State's Award of Merit in Literature, the highest honour the Egyptian establishment can confer on a writer. He is the author of four collections of short stories, several plays and works of non-fiction, and six novels. In 2008 he was awarded the inaugural International Prize for Arabic Fiction for SUNSET OASIS.
Excerpts
1 Mahmoud He told me, 'Your wife is a brave woman,' as though I don't know my own wife! Isn't she willingly going into danger with me? All the same, it may be that I don't truly know Catherine. Not now! The important thing is it was no coincidence. Every word he utters is spoken for a reason, though Catherine isn't the problem at this moment. And anyway, I'll never solve any problem wandering the gloomy corridors of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, especially following that oppressive meeting with Mr Harvey. There was nothing new in what he said, apart from the veiled hints, some of which I understood and the rest of which puzzled me. I knew before I saw him that matters were settled. Brigadier General Saeed Bey had informed me that the ministry's advisor had forwarded the recommendation to His Excellency the Minister of Internal Affairs and His Excellency had issued a transfer order, to be implemented immediately. I had only a few days left if I was to join the caravan that departed from Kerdasa, and the brigadier general advised me, as a friend, to abandon the idea of taking my wife: the journey to the oasis was not easy, and the posting itself very difficult, as I well knew, though, in the end, the decision was mine; despite which, it was his duty to warn me of the danger of the journey, which, under the best conditions and with a skilful guide, took at least two weeks. I'm confident that Saeed wasn't trying to scare me and I believe he did everything in his power to have me excused the posting. Our friendship is of long standing, though it may have waned over the years and these days is hardly more than the relationship between any official and his subordinate. However that may be, the stories and secrets of a bygone age form a bond. We haven't spoken of them for years, but each of us knows that the other still remembers. My other colleagues, of course, warned me, with suspect compassion, against the journey. Some were glad to have escaped the posting themselves and that it had fallen to me, and others had to make an effort to hide their delight at my discomfiture. They told me of the numerous caravans that had gone astray in the desert and been swallowed up by the sands, of small caravans that had lost the path and of a mighty Persian army on its way to take the oasis long ago that the desert had engulfed and buried beneath its sands for ever. They told me it was a lucky caravan which completed its journey before its supplies of water ran out and before the winds altered the features of the road, building dunes that had not existed before and burying the wells on which the caravans depended for watering the camels. Lucky too the caravan whose campsites were not attacked by wolves or hyenas and one or two of whose company were not stung by a scorpion or a snake. All this was said, and more, but I paid no attention. My fear of the caravan's safe arrival at its destination is no less than my fear of its getting lost. I know very well I am going to the place where it is my destiny to be killed, and perhaps Catherine's too. Was that one of the things Mr Harvey was hinting at in our meeting? I had entered his office determined to provoke him. What did I have to lose? It was the first time I had been in the office of this advisor, who held all the strings of the ministry in his hands. I found his diplomatic manner of talking affected and I found him affected too, as he sat there, his short body behind a huge desk, a tarboosh, from beneath which fair hair peeped, unconvincingly perched on his head. He didn't address himself to me but for most of the time directed his remarks towards an invisible point to his right, in the corner of the office. He repeated the things I had already heard from Brigadier General Saeed, but kept needling me on what he took to be my weak point: 'You must be happy, Captain Mahmoud Ab Excerpted from Sunset Oasis by Bahaa Taher All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
