Trench

Volume II in the Cities of Salt Trilogy

Munif’s Cities of Salt trilogy is “the only serious work of fiction that tries to show the effect of oil, Americans, and local oligarchy on a Gulf country.”—Edward Said

Translated by Peter Theroux.

“Munif’s wonderful novel is a welcome corrective....[It] deepens, enriches and above all humanizes whatever sense of Arab culture we may have.” —The New York Times Book Review


“The American ‘liberation’ of Kuwait adds unexpected timeliness to the second volume of Munif’s stately, satirical Cities of Salt trilogy (1987), which picks up the story of the Middle Eastern sultanate of Mooran in the 1950’s, as the corrupting effects of oil, greed, and American values reach epidemic proportions. Munif cannily keeps both oil and Americans offstage, focusing instead on the petty conflicts and intrigues swirling through the reign of Sultan Khazael, and especially on the incessant plotting of Machiavellian Dr. Subhi Mahmilji, the young sultan’s chief advisor....Mooran’s inexorable slide toward capitalism (Munif’s title refers both to shifting seismic foundations and to holes people can fall into) is presented in tiny, apparently inconsequential episodes...until the inevitable peremptory reaction against the sultan’s regime.... [T]his sly, patient dissection of a sultanate grown too rich for its own survival makes it clear why the author lost his own Saudi citizenship.”—Kirkus Reviews