The Long-Distance Race

Description

Eastern life is full of secrecy and ambiguity, not only in people and their behavior but also in animals and nature: a bitter cold in winter, a spring that bursts forth suddenly and without warning, and a scorching, fiery summer where the sun seems to emanate from the earth, walls, and trees. Peter lived in that East for a time, witnessing the collapse of the empire’s power, an empire that had long considered control of the East a symbol of its strength. Shirin, Abbas, Mirza; characters we see as close to us, we compare them to people we know, to politics we have experienced, and to outcomes whose meaning we understand more clearly today, long after we have turned the pages of Abdul Rahman Munif’s novel.