Banned in Saudi Arabia, this is a blistering look at Arab and American hypocrisy following the discovery of oil in a poor oasis community.

Cities of Salt

Literature & Fiction

MUNIF, Abdelrahman

Contemporary

JONATHAN CAPE.

A roman a clef of the Saudi government--featuring Awali, Sultan Khureybit, Sultan Khazael, and Prince Fanar--indicts Arab monarchies and pleads for the Arab masses

THE TRENCH

Literary

Pantheon

Full of Machiavellian intrigue and searing political satire, the final volume of Abdelrahman Munif's landmark Cities of Salt trilogy - "the only serious work of fiction that tries to show the effect of oil, Americans, and local oligarchy on a Gulf country" (Edward Said) - chronicles the creation of a fictional Persian Gulf nation through the machinations of a corrupt Arab monarch and conniving British empire builders. Set in the 1930s, Variations on Night and Day depicts the rise to power of Sultan Khureybit and the emergence of Mooran as a modern nation. Khureybit expands and consolidates his dominion, crushing rival clans by military force and internal opposition with bribes, guile, and assassinations - all in the name of holy war - even as he is being sponsored by the British government, which plays rival sultans off one another to secure its influence in the region. Against this setting we see as well the venality of the Sultan's polygamous household, in which his several wives vie for preeminence through gossip, chicanery, and murder.

VARIATIONS ON NIGHT AND DAY: A Novel

Banned in Saudi Arabia, this is a blistering look at Arab and American hypocrisy following the discovery of oil in a poor oasis community.

Genre Fiction

Vintage

Varations on Night & Day

Random House Value Publishing

From one of the most highly regarded writers of Arabic literature, Trench is the second volume in the epic quintet Cities of Salt. Tracing the economic history of the Arabic world, Munif picks up where Vol. I left off, with the effects of the discovery of oil reserves in the region beginning to show their true colors. Following The Doctor as he is invited by the Sultan of Harran, the character watches as the royalty succumbs to corruption and greed, and in turn, the political and natural destruction of his homeland. Praise for Trench “Munif’s wonderful novel is a welcome corrective. . . . [It] deepens, enriches and above all humanizes whatever sense of Arab culture we may have.”—The New York Times Book Review “[T]his sly, patient dissection of a sultanate grown too rich for its own survival makes it clear why the author lost his own Saudi citizenship.”—Kirkus Reviews

The Trench

Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

Full of Machiavellian intrigue and searing political satire, Variations on Night and Day, the final volume of Munif's landmark Cities of Salt trilogy, chronicles the creation of a Persian Gulf nation by a corrupt Arab monarch and conniving British empire builders.

Variations on Night and Day

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Books by MUNIF, Abdelrahman

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

Cities of Salt

THE TRENCH

VARIATIONS ON NIGHT AND DAY: A Novel

Cities of Salt

Varations on Night & Day

The Trench

Variations on Night and Day