Novel · A way to begin
Gold Dust
التبر
Ibrahim al-Koni · 1990
Synopsis
The son of a Tuareg nobleman, Oukhayyed receives on coming of age a spotted mehari, of unparalleled but fragile beauty. During its amorous escapades, the animal catches mange; its master crosses the desert until he finds the devil's herb that cures it, but must, in atonement, castrate it. A series of faults then follows, a promise made to the goddess Tanit and forgotten, a marriage that gets him driven out of his tribe, binding him ever more closely to his animal.
Context
A short novel published in 1990, it was its author's first book translated into French, from Gallimard, before appearing in English. The desert is neither setting nor metaphor here: it imposes its laws, its prohibitions and its gods, and the hero's fault lies in wanting to possess what ought to remain free. The beauty of the animal and the gold that defiles it carry the nomads' old distrust of whatever is amassed.
Who it is for
Short, hypnotic, with deliberate repetitions. The slow rhythm is that of walking in sand.
Prizes and reception
Translated into more than thirty languages, it is the most widely circulated Libyan novel outside the Arab world and the first to bring the Tuareg desert into contemporary fiction.