Recently bereaved Zuleikha Chashm Framareza MacBeth wades into the Clyde one morning and recovers a large box, with which she becomes obsessed. The discovery brings her together with Alex, a lute-playing clerk, and they manage to open the box - only to find six more boxes inside, each of which can be opened only by following a cryptic clue. The clues lead Zulie and Alex on a physical and emotional journey, modulated through music, across Glasgow, Argyllshire, Lincolnshire, Sicily, Lahore, and finally the frozen peaks of the 'Roof of the World'. Meanwhile Zulie, a troubled doctor, has been sucked into the vortex of the terminally ill Archie MacPherson, an ambivalent, visionary Second World War airman and Glasgow shipyard worker. In the manner of a lord of misrule, Archie's dying consciousness begins to shape and ultimately define Zuleikha and Alex's quest as they progress through the seven Sufi stations of sacrifice, truth, power, obedience, life, memory and beauty. Drawing on a wide framework of cultural and spiritual reference, uniquely blending contemporary Western literature and traditional Arabo-Persian storytelling, this is an extraordinary and ambitious novel with a visceral sensuality and subtle touches of magical realism, in the vein of Okri, Murakami and Pamuk.
'Linguistically, this is a word hoard, an "epic of mingling and mixing" ... A pliable, deceptive and maddeningly elegant close-up of a universe; and perhaps a truer, if splintered, reflection of this unfathomable world.' Scotland on Sunday
'It's an incredibly dense book. Saadi has researched widely and deeply for this, weaving together philosophy, mythology, history, class, politics, folk memories, psychedelia, Sufism and all kinds of arcane and esoteric knowledge ... Saadi's style, employing long sentences, an extensive vocabulary and endless digressions, is meant to evoke a symphonic feel, but also to link it to the seeds of the story ... that sense of ambition was reminiscent of first encountering, many years ago, Alasdair Gray's Lanark.' Sunday Herald
Genre: Literary Fiction
'Linguistically, this is a word hoard, an "epic of mingling and mixing" ... A pliable, deceptive and maddeningly elegant close-up of a universe; and perhaps a truer, if splintered, reflection of this unfathomable world.' Scotland on Sunday
'It's an incredibly dense book. Saadi has researched widely and deeply for this, weaving together philosophy, mythology, history, class, politics, folk memories, psychedelia, Sufism and all kinds of arcane and esoteric knowledge ... Saadi's style, employing long sentences, an extensive vocabulary and endless digressions, is meant to evoke a symphonic feel, but also to link it to the seeds of the story ... that sense of ambition was reminiscent of first encountering, many years ago, Alasdair Gray's Lanark.' Sunday Herald
Genre: Literary Fiction
Used availability for Suhayl Saadi's Joseph's Box