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by Hamoud Saud (Author), Zia Ahmed (Translator), Jokha Alharthi (Other)
In this lyrical collection, author Hamoud Saud invites readers into the soul of Oman, a country famed for its long coastline, rugged mountains, and stark desert landscapes. This geography provides the backdrop for stories that reveal both the beauty and hardship of a country and people on the margins. Focused on the capital city, Saud's Muscat is not a postcard-perfect city but a living, breathing place of cement forests, forgotten roundabouts, and ravens perched on flagpoles.
Each story is fabulist in spirit but grounded in the textures of everyday life: the scent of karak tea, the chatter of schoolgirls, the heat rising from asphalt. In "The Raven of Ruwi," a narrator wanders the city's commercial district where Indian music drifts from balconies and the streets are filled with weary bank workers. In "The Sad Donkey of Muscat," a blind man recounts the city's history as told to him by a donkey. And in "Post Office of the Dead," a forgotten postmaster receives letters from Dostoevsky and Kafka, triggering a surreal unraveling of time and self. At once intimate and expansive, The Raven of Ruwi and Other Stories from Oman is a powerful meditation on place, identity, and the stories that cities tellAuthor Biography
Hamoud Saud is an Omani writer of short stories and literary nonfiction. His work frequently appears in Arabic newspapers and culture magazines, and some of it has been translated into Azerbaijani, English, Japanese, and Spanish.
Zia Ahmed's translations of Arabic fiction and literary nonfiction have appeared in Asymptote, Denver Quarterly, and The Markaz Review. He lives in Virginia.
