Seals and the Nebula

Description

“In his eightieth year, Rawand Lawr contented himself with the sense of touch alone. Even the act of tasting became a form of touching. His finger moved from food to his mouth, from the soil to his mouth, and from the lines he could no longer see in his tattered book to his understanding. He read with his tongue—the tongue of a recluse in the vestibule adorned with green patterns on silver plating, beneath the four columns of the sprawling house’s foyer. He listened briefly to the commotion that rolled in—a faint sound disturbing the sanctuary of his certainty—and opened his mouth.”

Novelist and poet Salim Barakat continues to explore that world—simultaneously real and imagined—the world of the Kurds, with its peculiar rituals and enchanting traditions, blending the whimsical with the tragic. Barakat writes what resembles a Kurdish epic, yet he does so using the Arabic language—a language deeply rooted in his personal subconscious, whose secrets he has unlocked and whose hidden depths he has revealed, elevating it to a realm of wonder and creativity. In this novel, Barakat recalls memories of his primal homeland—its amusing events and its atmosphere, at once familiar and harsh—and reimagines them through the alchemy of his magical imagination. The result is a novel of exile and belonging, of past and present, of sorrow and hope.