An "ambitiously weighty" novel, Sunset Oasis, set in late-19th-cen. Egypt, by Bahaa Taher, pairs a "middle-aged government official" with his Irish, Classically trained wife, on a journey to the Oasis of Siwa--yes, that Siwa:
Even Alexander the Great, who makes a surprise appearance as a narrator, remembers his dream "of filling the world with a new strain, from the loins of the Europeans and the Asians, after which there could be no ill will among them or wars" with a sense of defeat.
Sunset Oasis is an ambitiously weighty novel and its characters sometimes behave more like ciphers than real people: "I am not Sappho!" exclaims Catherine, true to her education, when Maleeka tries to embrace her. As if in sympathy, the translation, by the usually excellent Humphrey Davies, is occasionally ponderous. But it offers a welcome glimpse of a troubled period of Egypt's history largely forgotten by its British colonisers and an absorbing portrait of a would-be good man destroyed by bad times.
Sounds interesting...
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