The Longing of the Dervish

As the nineteenth century closes, Egyptian forces backed by the British defeat the Mahdist state in Sudan, and in the fire and smoke Bakhit Mandil is let out of prison. Behind him lies a life of slavery, captivity, jail and abuse by his first master, a European. Now he resolves to take revenge on all who caused his imprisonment and the killing of his beloved Theodora, a Greek woman who came with a Christian mission, was taken captive, forced into her new master's faith and killed with a group of Europeans trying to escape to Egypt. Told in numbered chapters and flashbacks, the novel reflects on love, religion, treachery and the fight for power, and on the clash between Christian culture and Sufi Islam as a religious state collapses.

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About the book

Form

Novel

Length

460 pages in the original

Genres

Historical, Love, War (assigned by AI)

Set in

Sudan, late 19th century

First published

2014 by Dar al-Ain

ISBN

9789774902840 (original)

9789774167881 (Hoopoe, Egypt)

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Wikidata