Review by Booklist Review
Aboulela follows Bird Summons (2020) with a tale set in nineteenth-century Sudan that explores themes of faith and conquest without compromising on rich characterization or compelling plot development. She also centralizes women and their experiences in a larger sociopolitical context that is most often viewed in terms of men's lives. Sudan is dealing with the rise of a self-prophesied, charismatic, and controversial religious leader, Mahdi, who declares that he will redeem Islam, attracting followers disenchanted with Turkish rule even as families are split apart. Akuany-Zamzam, a girl who grows into womanhood during these turbulent years just before Sudan is colonized by the British, offers a focal point as the sands of history swirl around her while Aboulela's other vividly portrayed characters embody a variety of ways in which private and political realms intersect. Romances, family life, friendships, and other relationships are relentlessly constrained by ideologies that are often incomprehensible to those affected. Aboulela reveals the thin lines that can demarcate religious zeal and patriotic fervor, social crusade and personal recklessness, as she creates a finely wrought and compellingly in-depth drama about a land and its people.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
The action-packed latest from Aboulela (Bird Summons) turns on Sudan's religious civil war in the late 19th century. Akuany is 11 when raiders from the north of Sudan burn her village of Malakal to the ground. During the attack, Akuany and her younger brother, Bol, are kept safe by a merchant named Yaseen and the river, "the spirit of who she was." Akuany, Bol, and Yaseen then travel north to Al-Ubayyid, where Akuany is sold into slavery and renamed Zamzam, meaning "holy water" in Arabic. On the periphery, a fringe group believes their leader Muhammad Ahmed to be the Mahdi, an Islamic prophet who appears at the end of times to rid the world of evil and injustice. As the Mahdists overtake the country, claiming city after city, Yaseen--now a jurist for an Ottoman chief--must decide whether to falsely claim a zealot as a messiah or to deny him and face certain death, all while trying to figure out how to free Zamzam, whom he'd sworn to protect. Aboulela casts a scrutinous and perceptive eye on the motives of religious leaders and colonial forces, and she layers the narrative with a rich blend of languages and cultures. This brims with drama and nuance. (Mar.)
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Set during Sudan's Mahdist period of the 1880s, this sweeping historical novel centers on a young village girl called Akuany (later Zamzam) and Yaseen, a traveling merchant who takes Akuany and her brother under his protection after their village is raided. Leaving the children with his sister's family, Yaseen attends university and begins a career. While awaiting his return, Akuany becomes enslaved, while Yaseen takes a stand against the Mahdi, a self-proclaimed "redeemer of Islam" who is leading a rebellion against the waning Ottoman Empire and eventually the British Empire. Along with Zamzam and Yaseen, we get points of view from diverse characters, including Musa, a true believer in the Mahdi; Yaseen's mother, Fatimah; and Robert, a Scottish artist working for the British shipping interests. VERDICT Historical novels are often most successful when they focus on ordinary people experiencing extraordinary times, and that is the case with Aboulela's (The Kindness of Enemies) latest. Zamzam and Yaseen's love story is moving and gripping, sweeping the reader along hoping that they will end up together against the odds. The multiple perspectives also serve a useful purpose for readers who may know next to nothing about the complex historical events described. Highly recommended.--Christine DeZelar-Tiedman
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A young woman struggles for independence alongside a nation. Akuany is a child when her Sudanese village is raided, her father killed. She is able to survive when Yaseen, a young merchant who had been visiting from Khartoum, takes her along with him, thereby tying their fates irrevocably together. Aboulela's latest novel is set in the late 1800s, when Sudan was still under Ottoman rule, though the cracks in that empire were beginning to show. A leader springs up, quickly gathering followers; he has proclaimed himself the Mahdi, or redeemer, prophesied in Islam. But Yaseen, who gives up his inheritance as a merchant to study the Quran, has little faith in this leader. Aboulela's nuanced descriptions of Sudan's history--colonial, social, and religious--are the best parts of this rich and moving novel. Even as England vies for dominion over Sudan, even as Aboulela writes about the changes in power, her prose never turns heavy-handed. Akuany is renamed Zamzam, and as her country grows increasingly violent, her own fortunes are tumultuous, as she is sold into and out of slavery, ever loyal to Yaseen, who at first thinks, "My love for Zamzam is a burden," and, not long after, "She is not a burden but a gift. It is wrong to think otherwise." But while Aboulela's handling of Zamzam and Yaseen's relationship is vivid, even captivating, she doesn't manage the novel's plot with quite the same verve. The pacing often feels off. Tragic or violent events take place with little warning or fanfare, and a side story about a Scottish painter isn't fully integrated into the rest of the book. Still, there is a great deal to admire in Aboulela's work. A captivating--if imperfect--account of colonialism, Islam, and the burgeoning nation of Sudan. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
