In this, the first Nubian novel ever translated Idris Ali paints in vibrant detail the story of cultures and hearts divided, of lost lands, impossible dreams, and abandoned loves.

Dongola: A Novel of Nubia

Literature & Fiction

Theroux, Peter

Ali, Idris

Contemporary

University of Arkansas Press

The University of Arkansas Press Award for Arabic Literature in Translation, 1997
In this, the first Nubian novel ever translated, Awad Shalali, a Nubian worker in modern Egypt, dreams of Dongola—the capital of medeval Nubia, now lost to the flood waters of the Aswan High Dam. In Dongola, the Nubians reached their zenith. They defeated and dominated Upper Egypt, and their archers, deadly accurate in battle, were renowned as “the bowman of the glance.
Helima, Awad’s wife, must deal with the reality of today’s Nubia, a poverty-stricken bottomland. Men like Awad now work in Cairo for good wages while the women remain at home in squalor, dominated by the Islam of their conquerors and ignorant of the glory now covered by the Nile’s water. Left to tend Awad’s sick mother and his dying country, Halima grows despondent and learns the truths behind the Upper Egyptian lyric: “Time, you are a traitor—what have you done with my love?
Through his characters’ pain and suffering, Idris Ali paints in vibrant detail, with wit and a keen sense of history’s absurdities, the story of cultures and hearts divided, of lost lands, impossible dreams, and abandoned lives.

"This is your last day. Be strong. Don't hesitate. Cut and run. An exit with no return." Idris Alis confessional novel opens with these words, spoken on an unbearably hot August afternoon in downtown Cairo, where the Nubian narrator has just decided, once and for all, to end his life. Delirious and thirsty, he wanders around venting his resentments large and small, his sexual frustrations, and his sense of powerlessness in the face of unremitting injustice. He seeks to expunge his failed life in the Nile: the river that had been the life blood of his country for millennia, and that with Egypt's new dam now drowns Nubia, flinging her dispossessed sons north and south into exile. Many years ago, the narrator was one of those sons, fleeing flood and famine only to arrive in Cairo, penniless and shoeless, in time to see it go up in flames, the old regime overthrown by "the men in tanks." Poor is the story of a life of hardship, adversity, and emotional starvation. It is also the story of opportunities squandered and hopes traded away for nothing of a life lived, at times, all too poorly.

Poor: A Nubian Novel (Modern Arabic Literature (Paperback))

The American University in Cairo Press

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Books by Ali, Idris

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Ali, Idris. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Dongola: A Novel of Nubia

Dongola: A Novel of Nubia

Poor: A Nubian Novel (Modern Arabic Literature (Paperback))