Bahaa Taher’s latest novel “Wahet-El-Ghoroub (Sunset Oasis) is a story about contradictions born by the clear division between the east and the west symbolized in the novel by the juxtaposition between the oasis and the desert.
On March 17, Taher won the first International Prize for Arabic Fiction – which is being called the Arabic Booker Prize – for this novel, with a prize of $50,000.
Stories and characters swirl together in unison and apart from each other.
Events and narrative is drawn from Egyptian history books as well as Western fables and even Irish folktales.
On a trip of duty, a life threatening one, Mahmoud Abdel-Zaher, the maamour (police chief) is sent to Siwa on a mission to bring order to this oasis in colonized Egypt at the end of the 19th century.
Historical events are not absent in this novel, they are the main driving force of the narrative. Taher explores each character, dead and alive, with a penetrating microscope that delves deep into unspoken feelings, fears and shortcomings they characters aren’t even aware of.
Sheikh Saber, one of the chief tribesmen, Sheikh Yehia, a healer, and Catherine, Abdel Zaher’s Irish wife (“the brave wife ) and Alexander the Great – beside their role in the story’s tightly-knitted events – act as agents to explore the beauty of the oasis.
Taher’s Siwa is a mystery hidden in history books. His characters exist in an unpredictable era where they feel lost, creating goals and dreams to help them cope with the uncertainty of the time.
Abdel Zaher and Catherine’s marriage foreshadows what the former feels towards his country before and after Ahmed Orabi’s revolution in 1881.
Taher patiently explores the consequences of Orabi’s revolution on Abdel Zaher; the schism between the ideal love he seeks personally and the ideal devotion for his countrymen.
The married couple arrive to the oasis hoping that it will bring some change to their shaky relationship. What it actually does is disturb the peace.
Catherine’s obsession about finding the tomb of Alexander the Great isolates her from everyone else. She becomes even more self-absorbed as she delves into her maps and history books.
Torn between spurning and loving the traditions of the waha (oasis), and adrift in their own worlds, the pair grow increasingly unwelcome and alienated.
By the second half, Taher conjures up a world where everything that happens has several hidden meanings. He resurrects one of history’s most powerful leaders, Alexander the Great, choosing to focus on his enigmatic personal life rather than his conquests. The great Greek warrior is portrayed as a conflicted leader struggling to find inner peace after gaining so much power that it is almost suffocating.
Taher bounces back to follow Catherine’s sister, Fiona, who falls ill. The only person who can help is Sheikh Yehia, an enlightened herbal therapist who has just lost someone very dear to him, Malika.
Through stories told by the other characters, we find out that Malika was referred to as the Ghoula (monster). She was expelled from the oasis because she tried to rebel against the traditions and superstitions of the oasis, before and after her marriage. The fact that no one listens to or understands her leads to her death.
A common thread ties both Fiona and Malika: although one is dead and one is fighting to survive, they are both haunted by death.
Abdel Zaher’s past is beautiful and dreamy, making the present too difficult to cope with. He lives on the memory of his past love affair with Neama, and it is the only thing that gets him through difficult times, and gives him hope of a brighter future.
As events take a unexpected turn, the couple grow further apart.
By the end of the novel, Taher weaves the plotlines, characters and symbols into an allegory about a country lost in the shadows of its hazy history, and unable to fully comprehend or accept its present.
Through the characters revelations at the end of the novel, the message readers are left with is that to rebuild a nation, history has to be retold.
“Sunset Oasis is a highly ambitious and accomplished work that questions the importance of looking back to give birth to the future.
