sunset oasis

Bahaa Taher, in his new and wonderful novel, “The Sunset Oasis”, which met with public success and great critical acclaim, goes back to the end of the nineteenth century, and the beginning of his beginning is Qassis of the title. Where the Egyptian police officer, Mahmoud Abdel-Zaher, who lives a leisurely life among bars and night girls, was sent to the Siwa Oasis because he was suspected of sympathizing with the revolutionary ideas of Jamal al-Din al-Afghani and Ahmed Orabi. So he accompanies his Irish wife, Catherine, who is passionate about antiquities and is looking for the tomb of Alexander the Great, to immerse them in a new world that is very rich in a wide area, forcing them and the people of the oasis to confront themselves at a time when there was a lonely sister, betrayal, and the desire for heroism. The events of the novel also reflect a creative blending between the past and the present and .... the objective, history and reality that expresses the concerns of the homeland. It also presents the experience of the relationship between East and West on both the human and civilized levels, including the conflict and consensus that it entails. Bahaa Taher (1935-) is one of the most important Arab novelists. He won the State Appreciation Award in Literature in 1998. He has so far written five novels, the most important of which are: My Aunt Safia and the Monastery (1991) and Love in Exile (1995) and four collections of short stories, in addition to literary and critical studies and translation.