Iraqi Kurdistan at the turn of the twenty-first century is a territory ruled by strongmen, revolutionaries, fixers, bureaucrats and the "Barons," who control everything from livestock and land to Kurdish cultural life. Defying the absolute power wielded by the Barons, a band of friends led by a poet embarks on an odyssey to find the bodies of two lovers killed unjustly by the authorities. The Barons respond by attempting to crush these would-be avengers, though their real war is waged against the imagination itself - despite the fact that imagination in its myriad forms is a prized, elusive commodity for which intellectuals, merchants, political elites and humble workers all search in one way or another. The stark realities of a rapidly changing yet still traumatised society are woven through with elements of the fantastic: a boy is born with a poem etched into his chest; a wild-eyed mystic consummates his love for a married woman in the spirit world; a political assassin discovers compassion and can no longer kill; a Hollywood film buff leads a cluster of blind children on an imaginary sea journey.Bakhtiyar Ali's visionary novel is a soulful meditation on both political and poetic power. The Gardens of the Imagination is a trip, in more ways than one: a tale of people travelling great distances in their minds or with their feet. It is a phantasmagoric, lyrical interpretation of contemporary Kurdistan, so much in the news nowadays but otherwise so little known. Told by several unreliable narrators in a kaleidoscope of fragments that all eventually cohere, the author manages the neat trick of dipping the reader into a mesmerising fantasia just long enough before wrenching her or him back to hard, cold "real life." Bakhtiyar Ali has said that he wrote this novel

I Stared at the Night of the City

Ali, Bakhtiyar

Children's Books

Periscope

Iraqi Kurdistan at the turn of the twenty-first century is a territory ruled by strongmen, revolutionaries, fixers, bureaucrats, and the "Barons" who control everything from livestock and land to Kurdish cultural life.
Defying the absolute power wielded by the Barons, a band of friends led by an enigmatic poet embark on an odyssey to find the bodies of two lovers killed unjustly by the authorities. The Barons respond by attempting to crush these would-be avengers—but their real war is waged against the imagination itself, a prized, elusive commodity to which intellectuals, merchants, political elites, and humble workers all seek access in one way or another.
I Stared at the Night of the City is a tale of extraordinary people travelling great distances, in their minds or with their feet. It is a lyrical interpretation of contemporary Kurdistan, so much in the news, but so little understood. Told by several unreliable narrators in a kaleidoscope of fragments that all eventually cohere, the novel immerses readers in the fantastic just long enough, before wrenching them back to hard, cold "real life."
Bakhtiyar Ali was born in Sulaymaniyah, Iraqi Kurdistan, in 1960, and currently resides in Bonn, Germany. He is a novelist as well as a literary critic, essayist, and poet, and is widely considered one of the most prominent Kurdish writers by readers in Kurdistan as well as in the Kurdish diaspora. He has published six novels, several poetry collections, and a book of essays.

Literature & Fiction

Genre Fiction

Garnet Publishing

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Ali, Bakhtiyar. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Ali, Bakhtiyar

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Ali, Bakhtiyar. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

I Stared at the Night of the City

I Stared at the Night of the City