Salim Barakat’s First Novel: Sages of Darkness

Aviva Butt has just finished translating in collaboration with the author, Salim Barakat’s first novel Fuqahā’ al-Ẓalām (Sages of Darkness) written in 1985. The translation was done from a later original Arabic manuscript roughly the same as the 1994 Baghdadi edition. Sages of Darkness is a Kurdish Sufi novel depicting Kurdish life in late Ottoman times. It is, in fact, a philosophical novel with a strong dose of psychological realism, written in a style derived from Classical Modernism. And so, it is mainstream literature, an achievement in view of the late start in novel-writing by the Kurdish far-flung writers’ community. The action line, full of suspense, violence, and murder, is greatly about the tribal notable “Avdei Sarei,” who does everything he can to ensure the survival of his business and the economic health of his endeavors. In this article, the translator of Sages of Darkness analyzes Barakat’s novelistic techniques for the purpose of prompting a better understanding of the novel, and by-the-by, if possible, to solve the enigma of the meaning of the title.