Ibrahim al-Koni
Ibrahim al-Koni إبراهيم الكون
Ibrahim al-Koni is a Libyan writer and one of the most prolific Arabic novelists.
Born in 1948 in Fezzan Region, Ibrahim al-Koni was brought up on the tradition of the Tuareg, popularly known as "the veiled men" or "the blue men." Mythological elements, spiritual quest and existential questions mingle in the writings of al-Koni who has been hailed as magical realist, Sufi fabulist and poetic novelist.
He spent his childhood in the desert and learned to read and write Arabic when he was twelve. Al-Koni studied comparative literature at the Maxim Gorky Literature Institute in Moscow and then worked as a journalist in Moscow and Warsaw.
Translated Titles by Ibrahim al-Koni
Gold Dust is a classic story of the brotherhood between man and beast, the thread of companionship that is all the difference between life and death in the desert. It is a story of the fight to endure in a world of limitless and waterless wastes, and a parable of the struggle to survive in the most dangerous landscape of all: human society.
His spare novel, its prominent Libyan author’s first to reach English translation, is a winning combination of ecological fable, political statement, and lyrical lament for the past. The focal character is Asouf, a herdsman who lives essentially alone with his goats in a mountainous desert region all but untouched by the modern age. Asouf’s peace is routinely disrupted by the “Christian tourists” who flock to observe ancient religious paintings hidden away on the walls of honeycombed caves, and more severely threatened by ebullient “Westerners” who enlist him to guide their hunt for the moufflon, a species of wild sheep believed to be a sacred animal. The story’s melodramatic apocalyptic finale seems slightly forced, but in no way dissipates the power of al-Koni’s subtle dramatization of irreconcilable cultural misunderstanding and enmity.