Granada [Arabic]

This book was brought to my attention as a student of translation. I think that it is indeed a remarkable novel for a variety of reasons. Although a specialist on the history of this era might not be satisfied with the quantity of historical detail presented, I did not feel like the story itself was sacrificed for the purpose of allegory. The key aspects of the story were the act of presenting a story, in itself -- the language was sumptuous and the arabic translation was breathtaking. Descriptions were fabulously drawn. My impression of the novel was that it gently creates an allegory, while more importantly reiterating that people who live in an insular culture are always slow to change. I thought this book might be well received by Americans, who generally are not aware that the rest of the world does not move as quickly as they do, and who are not prepared to deal with too much character depth or historical detail.