"A beautifully constructed novel by an author whose reputation in Arabic is deservedly vast.”—London Tribune"An Arabian Nights in reverse, enclosing a pithy moral about international misconceptions and delusions.”—The Observer Salih's shocking and beautiful novel reveals much about the people on each side of a cultural divide. A brilliant Sudanese student takes his mix of anger and obsession with the West to London, where he has affairs with women who are similarly obsessed with the mysterious East. Life, ecstasy, and death share the same moment in time. First published in Arabic in 1969.