"Unlike most of what we classify as world literature, Mr. al-Koni offers no concessions to the Anglophone reader-nothing in his vast story is explained or contextualized. It gives one the feeling of having been dropped into the middle of the Sahara with a canteen and a compass. This is daunting but exciting, and the persevering reader will begin to discern the secret desert language that the nomads have long mastered, a speech made of wind and stillness." * Wall Street Journal *<br />"[<i>The Fetishists</i>] is a grand epic, rooted in an impressively evoked otherworldly locale -- a sense intensified all the more so because much of the tension in the novel arises from the pull between the otherworldly (spiritual) and the worldly (and specifically commercial). Al-Koni does not make it easy for the readers, but there's method and justification to his drawn-out and slowly unfolding elaboration -- and for all its length <i>The Fetishists</i> is never boring. This is a strange but, yes, magnificent novel, and certainly worthwhile." * The Complete Review *<br />"Imagine a book of more than 500 pages where plot and character don't matter, a giant multi-room museum piece that asks to be read in stages and puzzled over. Ibrahim al-Koni's epic novel "Al-Majus" - newly available in English translation as "The Fetishists" - is just such a read." * Qantara *<br />"[A] monumental work...Al-Koni has a tremendous gift for description and his poetic prose, dazzlingly translated by William Hutchins, is mesmerising...Al-Koni has certainly succeeded in writing a magnificent Tuareg epic in <i>The Fetishists</i>, and one that a reader is likely to return to again and again." * Banipal *