ISBN: 9781623719821
Paperback: 160 pages
Publisher: Interlink, 2019
Language: English
Translator: Sophia Vasalou
Dimensions: 5.25 x 8 inches
After the ceasefire in 1988, the devastation to the landscape of Iraq wrought by the longest war of the twentieth century – the Iran-Iraq War – becomes visible. Eight years of fighting have turned nature upside down, with vast wastelands being left behind. In southeastern Iraq, along the shores of the Shatt al-Arab River, the groves of date palm trees have withered. No longer bearing fruit, their leaves have turned a bright yellow. There, Iraqi forces had blocked the entry points of the river’s tributaries and streams, preventing water from flowing to the trees and vegetation. Yet, surveying this destruction from the sky, a strip of land bursting with green can be seen. Beginning from the Shatt al-Arab River and reaching to the fringes of the western desert, several kilometers wide, it appears as a lush oasis of some kind. The secret of this fertility, sustaining villages and remaining soldiers, is unclear. But it is said that one old woman is responsible for this lifeline.
Ismail Fahd Ismail is regarded as the founder of the art of the novel in Kuwait. After the appearance of The Sky Was Blue, in 1970, he published 27 novels, as well as three short story collections, two plays and several critical studies. The Phoenix and the Faithful Friend was long-listed for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2014. He is revered for his encouragement of new Kuwaiti and Arab literary talent. This novel was shortlisted for the 2017 International Prize for Arabic Fiction.
Sophia Vasalou is a Birmingham Fellow in philosophical theology at the University of Birmingham. Her current research focuses on the development of virtue ethics in the Islamic intellectual tradition, with a specialization in al-Ghaz?l?’s work. She is also an English translator of Arabic literary works and is currently translating a project for the Library of Arabic Literature. She received her PhD in Islamic theology from the University of Cambridge.
Hemingway, eat your heart out! Part desert-island novel, part war story, part ‘Don Quixote’ and part folktale, the last novel by Kuwaiti writer Ismail Fahd Ismail (1940-2018) brings us the Iran-Iraq war through the eyes of a wise old fool, the novel is wrapped up with grace and affection. It also makes a magical end to the life of the prolific and beloved novelist Ismail Fahd Ismail, who passed away late last September in Kuwait, at the age of 78. May his books, like Abu Qasem, live on. – Marcia Lynx Qualey, Qantara
