The Seven Veils of Seth
by Ibrahim al-Koni
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"In the ancient Egyptian religion, Seth is the evil god who out of jealousy slays his brother Osiris, the good god of agriculture, to seize the throne. Seth is, however, also the god of the desert and therefore a benevolent champion of desert dwellers like the traditionally nomadic Kel Tamasheq, better known as the Tuareg. In The Seven Veils of Seth, the world-renowned, Libyan, Tuareg author Ibrahim al-Koni draws on the tension between these two opposing visions of Seth to create a novel show more that also provides a vivid account of daily life in a Tuareg oasis." "Isan, the novel's protagonist, is either Seth himself or a latter-day avatar. A desert-wandering seer and proponent of desert life, he settles for an extended stay in a fertile oasis. If Jack Frost, the personification of the arrival of winter, were to visit a tropical rain forest, the results might be similarly disastrous. Not surprisingly, since this is a novel by Ibrahim al-Koni, infanticide, uxoricide, serial adultery, betrayal, metamorphosis, murder by a proxy animal, ordinary murder, and a life-threatening chase through the desert all figure in the plot, although the novel is also an existential reflection on the purpose of human life." "Ibrahim al-Koni typically layers allusions in his works as if he were an artist adding a suggestion of depth to a painting by applying extra washes. Tuareg folklore, Egyptian mythology, Russian literature, and medieval European thought elbow each other for room on the page. One might expect a novel called The Seven Veils of Seth to be a heavy-handed allegory. Instead, the reader is left wondering. The truth is elusive, a mirage pulsing at the horizon."--BOOK JACKET. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
The story suffers from an often awkward translation, but in itself is epic. Love, hate, death, the will of the spirits, the stubbornness of man all take their place as is normal in these tales.
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39+ Works 444 Members
Born in 1948 to a nomadic Saharan family, Ibrahim Al-Koni is an award-winning Arabic-language novelist and has already published more than seventy volumes. A Tuareg whose mother tongue is Tamasheq, he was educated in Moscow and, after many years in Switzerland, now lives in Spain. He is one of the prime authorities on Tuareg culture and folklore. show more William M. Hutchins, Professor in the Philosophy and Religion Department at Appalachian State University, has translated numerous works of Arabic literature into English, including four novels by the Nobel Prize laureate Naguib Mahfouz. He has received two grants from the National Endowment for the Arts for literary translation, both for works by Ibrahim al-Koni. He was co-winner of the 2013 Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation for A Land Without Jasmine by Wajdi al-Ahdal. show less
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Awards and Honors
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- The Seven Veils of Seth
- Original title
- البحث عن المكان الضائع; al-Bahth ‘An al-Makan al-Da’i
- Original publication date
- 2003
- Original language
- Arabic
Classifications
- Genres
- Fiction and Literature, General Fiction, Historical Fiction
- DDC/MDS
- 892.736 — Literature & rhetoric Literatures of other languages Afro-Asiatic literatures Arabic (Egypt, Lebanon, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Sudan) Arabic fiction 1945–2000
- LCC
- PJ7842 .U54 .B3413 — Language and Literature Oriental languages and literatures Oriental philology and literature Arabic Arabic literature Individual authors or works
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 32
- Popularity
- 879,631
- Reviews
- 1
- Rating
- (3.75)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 3
- ASINs
- 1
