IN THE HOUR OF THE SIGNS

by Jamal Mahjoub ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 9, 1996

This wide-angled view of the late-19th-century siege of Khartoum, by the author of Wings of Dust (1994) and Navigation of a Rainmaker (1989), shifts continuously among its Sudanese and British combatants in a bustling, movie-spectacular kind of way. Indeed, the dominant figures of General Gordon (""Gordon Pasha"") and his resourceful antagonist, the fanatical Mahdi, have a sort of big-screen hyperreality, but Mahjoub strikes far deeper and truer with such figures as the zealous military leader Nejumi, a keenly intelligent and sentient officer named Hamilton Ellesworth, and, especially, the pilgrim and ""scribe"" (and apparent authorial stand-in) Hawi. Overall, an impressive fictional treatment of its overworked subject, and a real advance for its author.

Pub Date: Dec. 9, 1996

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: 249

Publisher: Heinemann

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1996

Categories: FICTION