Cities of salt
Subtitle: a novel
By: Abdelrahman Munif ; translated from the Arabic by Peter Theroux.
Contributors: Theroux, Peter.
Edition: 1st American ed.
Publisher: Random House
Published: 1987
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng; ara
Number of pages: 627
Description: Banned in several Middle Eastern countries, this novel records the encounter between Americans and Arabs in an unnamed Gulf emirate in the 1930s. As oil exploration begins, the destruction of an oasis community amounts to "a breaking off, like death, that nothing and no one could ever heal." The promise inherent in the creation of a city divided into Arab and American sectors provides the novel's most striking revelation: here not merely two cultures, but two ages, meet and stand apart. Alternatively amused and bewildered by the Americans and their technological novelties, the Arabs sense in their accommodation to modernity the betrayal of their own traditions. Highly recommended, if only for its cross-cultural insights. --L.M. Lewis, Library Journal.
Notes: Translation of: Mudun al-milḥ.