The Fetishists

Unlike most of what we classify as world literature, Mr. al-Koni offers no concessions to the Anglophone reader—nothing in his vast story is explained or contextualized. It gives one the feeling of having been dropped into the middle of the Sahara with a canteen and a compass. This is daunting but exciting, and the persevering reader will begin to discern the secret desert language that the nomads have long mastered, a speech made of wind and stillness.

— Wall Street Journal

[The Fetishists] is a grand epic, rooted in an impressively evoked otherworldly locale—a sense intensified all the more so because much of the tension in the novel arises from the pull between the otherworldly (spiritual) and the worldly (and specifically commercial). Al-Koni does not make it easy for the readers, but there's method and justification to his drawn-out and slowly unfolding elaboration—and for all its length The Fetishists is never boring. This is a strange but, yes, magnificent novel, and certainly worthwhile.

— The Complete Review

Imagine a book of more than 500 pages where plot and character donʹt matter, a giant multi-room museum piece that asks to be read in stages and puzzled over. Ibrahim al-Koniʹs epic novel "Al-Majus" – newly available in English translation as "The Fetishists" – is just such a read.

— Qantara

[A] monumental work…Al-Koni has a tremendous gift for description and his poetic prose, dazzlingly translated by William Hutchins, is mesmerising…Al-Koni has certainly succeeded in writing a magnificent Tuareg epic in The Fetishists, and one that a reader is likely to return to again and again.

— Banipal