3 Review(s)

The Merman and the Book of Power brings into the English the classical qissa genre, a fabuliststorytelling form common to the oral and written literatures of Urdu, Persian, and Arabic.The book begins with the Mongol armies laying siege to Baghdad in 1258. Their attack doesnot cease from the early hours of light to darkness. Such is the ferocity of their advance thatthe citizens of the city are convinced they are the manifestation of the End Time creaturesGog and Magog, imprisoned by the legendary King Alexander. It was said that their faces,red as the flames of hell, seemed buried between their shoulders. Their lice-covered, steelybodies gave off a dreadful odour, as their fierce, small eyes moved alertly in their sockets.Thick sideburns protruded like snakes from sheepskin caps covering their shaven heads.In the night, their teeth and talons had glowed as they slunk outside the city walls likemalevolent wolves. Baghdad falls, the Mongols take over.A year later, when the city gates open to allow a strange creature—half man, half beast—caught by Mediterranean fishermen, fresh rumours begin to circulate. Is Gujastak theMerman one of Creation’s marvels or an ill omen whose appearance signals the Apocalypse?In parallel to the Merman’s story is the story of a talismanic book that confers diabolicalpowers on the one who possesses it.In the hands of master storyteller Musharraf Ali Farooqi the qissa comes to glowing life asit spins a tale of magical creatures, ill-starred lovers, and the phenomena that might bringthe world to its end.