В седьмом выпуске «Восточного альманаха» публикуются сатирический роман классика современной китайской литературы Лао Шэ «Мудрец сказал…» о жизни пекинских студентов 30–х годов нашего столетия; лирическая повесть монгольского писателя С. Пурэва «Осень в горах», рассказы писателей Индии, Японии, Турции, Ливана и Сингапура; стихи поэтов — мастеров пейзажной лирики Пэй Ди, Ван Цзиня, принадлежавших к кругу великого китайского поэта Ван Вэя; статья о быте и нравах жителей экзотического острова Сокотра в Индийском океане и другие материалы.

"The Scarecrow" is the final volume of Ibrahim al-Koni's Oasis trilogy, which chronicles the founding, flourishing, and decline of a Saharan oasis. Fittingly, this continuation of a tale of greed and corruption opens with a meeting of the conspirators who assassinated the community's leader at the end of the previous novel, "The Puppet." They punished him for opposing the use of gold in business transactions-a symptom of a critical break with their nomadic past-and now they must search for a leader who shares their fetishistic love of gold. A desert retreat inspires the group to select a leader at random, but their "choice," it appears, is not entirely human. This interloper from the spirit...

This mythic tale of greed and political corruption by award-winning novelist Ibrahim al-Koni tells a gripping, expertly crafted story of bloody betrayal and revenge inspired by gold lust and an ancient love affair.

Upon the death of their leader, a group of Tuareg, a nomadic Berber community whose traditional homeland is the Sahara Desert, turns to the heir dictated by tribal custom; however, he is a poet reluctant to don the mantle of leadership. Forced by tribal elders to abandon not only his poetry but his love, who is also a poet, he reluctantly serves as leader. Whether by human design or the meddling of the Spirit World, his death inspires his tribe to settle down permanently, abandoning not only nomadism but also the inherited laws of the tribe. The community they found, New Waw, which they name for the mythical paradise of the Tuareg people, is also the setting of Ibrahim al-Koni's companion...

Роман «Бесы пустыни» (название оригинала «Аль-Маджус») — одно из самых известных произведений ливийского писателя Ибрагима аль-Куни, лауреата многочисленных арабских и международных литературных премий. В романе представлена эпическая картина жизни людей Сахары — Великой пустыни, где переплелись древние сказания, мудрые изречения далёких предков, устремления ныне живущих, из которых одни ищут Бога, а другие одержимы низменными страстями и вечной погоней за золотом и властью. Это книга о попытках вернуть потерянный рай через создание земного города счастья.

A Tuareg youth ventures into trackless desert on a life-threatening quest to find the father he remembers only as a shadow from his childhood, but the spirit world frustrates and tests his resolve. For a time, he is rewarded with the Eden of a lost oasis, but eventually, as new settlers crowd in, its destiny mimics the rise of human civilization. Over the sands and the years, the hero is pursued by a lover who matures into a sibyl-like priestess. The Libyan Tuareg author Ibrahim al-Koni, who has earned a reputation as a major figure in Arabic literature with his many novels and collections of short stories, has used Tuareg folklore about Anubis, the ancient Egyptian god of the underworld,...

Isan, the novel s protagonist, is either Seth himself or a latter-day avatar. A desert-wandering seer and proponent of desert life, he settles for an extended stay in a fertile oasis. If Jack Frost, the personification of the arrival of winter, were to visit a tropical rain forest, the results might be similarly disastrous. Not surprisingly, since this is a novel by Ibrahim al-Koni, infanticide, uxoricide, serial adultery, betrayal, metamorphosis, murder by a proxy animal, ordinary murder, and a life-threatening chase through the desert all figure in the plot, although the novel is also an existential reflection on the purpose of human life.Ibrahim al-Koni typically layers allusions in his...

Rejected by his tribe and hunted by the kin of the man he killed, Ukhayyad and his thoroughbred camel flee across the desolate Tuareg deserts of the Sahara. Between bloody wars against the Italians in the north and famine raging in the south, Ukhayyad rides for the remote rock caves of Jebel Hasawna. There, he says farewell to the mount who has been his companion through thirst, disease, lust, and loneliness. Alone in the desert, haunted by the prophetic cave paintings of ancient hunting scenes and the cries of jinn in the night, Ukhayyad awaits the arrival of his pursuers and their insatiable hunger for blood and gold. Gold Dust is a classic story of the brotherhood between man and beast,...

В предлагаемый сборник вошли произведения ливийских прозаиков минувшей четверти XX века, охватывающие период подъема национально-освободительной борьбы и осуществления социально-политических преобразований в Ливии после революции 1969 года. Рассказы посвящены актуальным проблемам ливийского народа: трудной судьбе бедуина, ценой жизни добывающего насущный хлеб для своей семьи в бесплодной Сахаре («Глоток крови»), борьбе с колонизаторами («Похороны»), положению женщины как в городе, так и в деревне («Внеочередная молитва», «Собаки»). Новеллы, включенные в сборник, рисуют правдивые картины из жизни современной Ливии и представляют бесспорный интерес для советского читателя.