By Guirado for Mare Nostrum, January 3, 2023
It all starts with a dream. A haunting and poetic dream in which angels descend from heaven to pick jasmine from the gardens of Basra – present-day Basra in Iraq. This dream continually monopolizes the mind of Hishâm Khattab who, after brilliant studies in geology which did not lead to any professional opportunities, now earns his living by reselling old books.

By Richard Jacquemond, for Le Monde des Livres, February 9th, 2023
Hisham, who lives off the antique book trade, is haunted by a dream. He sees himself alive, under the name of Yazid Ibn Abihi, in Basra (or Basra, name of the second city of Iraq, located in the south of the country), at the end of the first century of the Hegira, when this city was a major intellectual and religious center of the nascent Islamic empire.

A review by Maya Kergall and Olivia Phelip, for Via Books, February 19th, 2023
At the start of 2023, many publications give pride of place to foreign literature. We find some heavyweights like the latest books by the late Javier Marias, Colson Whitehead, Joyce Carol Oates or the reissue of a major text by Vassili Grossman. These giants rub shoulders with a few novels whose authors are to be discovered without delay: thus the young Iranian Nassim Marashi, the American Ash Davidson, the Egyptian novelist Mansoura Ez-Eldin or even the American …

Hisham Al Khattab is Yazid ibn Abih. At least he thinks he is. Some 13 centuries separate the two, but in the despaired mind of Hisham Al Khattab, and through the magical power of dreams, Hisham is Yazid. 

 Can you be a hero on Twitter? This book’s main protagonist, Rami, wonders. He, for one, would love to be one a hero of some sort. And as the novel opens, with Rami discovering his face tagged all over the walls of Tahrir square, it appears Rami finally has his chance.

Out of the gutter is a most unusual read: A saga that mixes tragedy, and a dark, off the wall humor.