International Booker Prize finalist and "one of the Arab world's most
innovative novelists" (Roger Allen) delivers a brilliant retelling of
the Muslim wars of conquest in North Africa
The year is 693 and a tense exchange, mediated by an interpreter, takes
place between Berber warrior queen al-Kahina and an emissary from the
Umayyad General Hassan ibn Nu'man. Her predecessor had been captured and
killed by the Umayyad forces some years earlier, but she will go on to
defeat Ibn Nu'man's forces.
The Night Will Have Its Say is a retelling of the Muslim wars of
conquest in North Africa during the seventh century CE, narrated from
the perspective of the conquered peoples. Written in Ibrahim al-Koni's
unique and enchanting voice, his lyrical and deeply poetic prose speaks
to themes that are intensely timely. Through the wars and conflicts of
this distant, turbulent era, he addresses the futility of war, the
privilege of an elite few at the expense of the many, the destruction of
natural habitats and indigenous cultures, and questions about literal
and fundamentalist interpretations of religious texts.
Al-Koni's masterly account of conquest and resistance is both timeless
and timely, infused with a sense of disaster and exile--from language,
the desert, and homeland.
