Novel
The Fall of the Imam
سقوط الإمام
Nawal El Saadawi · 1987
Synopsis
In an unnamed Muslim country, the Grand Imam rules according to sharia. Bint Allah, “daughter of God”, is an orphan born out of wedlock, raised in a brutal orphanage where the children know nothing of their fathers or mothers. Her mother, according to New Humanist, was stoned to death on the Imam's orders after her tongue had been cut out. Black eagles, figures of surveillance, hover over the country. The same events return again and again, with changing details and voices that shift from the first person to the third.
Context
The novel appeared in Cairo in 1987; it was, according to New Humanist, the author's seventh. Its structure keeps returning to the same scenes, as consciousness does, and two events of great violence stand out in it, the stoning of a woman and the violent death of the Imam. Sherif Hetata, the author's husband, translated it into English as early as 1988 for Methuen; Saqi has reissued it. It appeared six years before the threats that drove the author to leave to teach in the United States.
Who it is for
A short novel, with a circular construction and a direct tone; translated into English, no French translation found.
Prizes and reception
Novel by an author whose work is translated into more than thirty languages.
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