At the Wall of the Almighty (Emerging Voices

by Farnoosh Moshiri

This series is designed to bring to North American readers the once-unheard voices of writers who have achieved wide acclaim at home, but are not recognized beyond the borders of their native lands. With special emphasis on women writers, Interlink's Emerging Voices series publishes the best of the world's contemporary literature in translation or original English.Is it really possible for a man to forget who he is? Loony Kamal is bent on finding out. Our narrator, though, is even more determined to survive. Their relationship -- with its inhuman brutality and surprising tenderness -- lies at the complicated heart of Farnoosh Moshiri's extraordinary debut novel.

Genres: Fiction, Magical Realism

495 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1999

About the author

Iranian born writer Farnoosh Moshiri has published plays, short stories, and translations in Iranian literary magazines before the 1979 revolution and in anthologies published outside Iran in the 1980s. In 1983, she fled her country after a massive arrest of secular intellectuals, feminists, and political activists. She lived in refugee camps of Afghanistan and India for four years before emigrating to the U.S. in 1987.

Reviews

[Max Ostrovsky · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you're looking for a Muslim centric magic realism story that uses a lot of the same story telling techniques that Rushdie uses, I recommend a far superior story done by a far superior writer: Farnoosh Moshiri's At the Wall of the Almighty.

Here is a very fluid story of a Persian freedom fighter locked in a prison. It is very hallucinogenic. It has lots of Magic Realism. It has lots of backstory, side stories that are interesting and engaging. It is everything that Salman Rushdie's book should have been, but didn't get any hype whatsoever.

I read this book years ago and when I got to the last page, I didn't know whether I wanted to shake Farnoosh's hand or punch her in her nose. That last page was so incredible and so completely paradigm changing you're not even sure of your own reaction. That is a good story teller.

[Steve Love · Rating 4 out of 5]

At the Wall of the Almighty begins sometime after a failed revolution with a man in an Iranian prison who has been tortured to the point of amnesia. Farnoosh Moshiri deftly weaves a story in and out of the man's horrific present through his attempts to reclaim memories, especially those of his long lost twin sister. While some memories feel grounded in reality, others take a drug-induced turn for the dreamlike, and the reader—along with the protagonist—will often question what, if any of it, is really true. Adding to the air of instability, prison politics have the guards fighting each other for power.

[Paul Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a disturbing odyssey. Magic realism in the vain of Rushdie and Robbins. Story oscillates between guy in prison (who is being horrifically tortured) and his daydreams of his early life and his sprawling family. All the while, he is hunting for his lost twin sister.

Covers Good vs Evil, the hijacking of religion for evil and unrelated uses, etc. etc