The Silence of the Horizons

In this profound and poetically written novel by the award-winning Mauritanian author Beyrouk, a young man, Nadir, must confront his inner demons in the wake of a passionate act of violence that left a woman lying unresponsive at the water’s edge. In a state of moral confusion, he flees the scene of the crime and joins up with a friend who acts as a tour guide for foreign tourists camping in the desert where he is hired as the group’s “griot” or storyteller for the wide-eyed children of the families seeking the real desert experience. As he regales them with fantastic tales of djinns and far-away worlds, he grapples with his conscience as to whether or not he should turn himself in and confess his crime to the police. Beyrouk brings the desert to life with vivid descriptions of the dunes, the stars and the emptiness of the sub-Saharan region while recounting his protagonist’s outer and inner voyages. Wrestling with his own dilemna, Nadir reflects on his father, a much beloved griot and guide, who had been falsely accused and condemned for a crime. In a narrative that brings to mind Albert Camus’ The Stranger and the writing of Antoine de St. Exupery, Beyrouk draws the reader deep into this young man’s moral anxiety and fears as he determines the right path to take.

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