Novel · A way to begin
Cities of Salt
مدن الملح
Abdul Rahman Munif · 1984
Synopsis
In the oasis of Wadi al-Ouyoun, in the heart of the desert, Bedouins live to the rhythm of water and caravans, until the arrival of Americans who have come looking for oil. Mut'ib al-Hadhal rejects what is coming, while Ibn Rachid chooses to serve the newcomers. The inhabitants have to move to Harran, on the coast, where an oil town is being born: yesterday's masters become workers, drivers lose their livelihood to machines, and the emir amuses himself with the inventions he is offered.
Context
First volume of a cycle of five novels published in Lebanon from 1984 to 1989, the book was translated into English by Peter Theroux in 1987 and into French by France Meyer in 2013, at Sindbad, under the title L'Errance. Edward Said saw in it the only serious work of fiction on the effect of oil, the Americans and the local oligarchy in a Gulf country. Banned in Saudi Arabia and in other countries, it is regarded as the founding novel of oil fiction.
Who it is for
A long novel, more than six hundred pages in translation, told like a chronicle; it opens a cycle but can be read on its own.
Prizes and reception
Its author received the first major prize for the Arabic novel, and the cycle is held to have no equivalent in the contemporary Arabic novel.