Salim Barakat's Genuine Novelistic Techniques: Sages of Darkness

Abstract

The present study brings to light some of the original novelistic writing techniques that Salim Barakat evolved in his first novel entitled Fuqahā’ al-Ẓalām (Sages of Darkness). With this novel, the author laid the foundation for techniques to be used in his subsequent novels. In the absence of an established Middle Eastern or Kurdish tradition of novel writing, Barakat had ample space to develop his own original techniques. He first published Sages of Darkness in 1985 in Nicosia Cyprus, and later published a second edition in Baghdad in 1994—with a further overlay of cinematic imagery and use of his own poetics and vocabulary as in his poems of the intervening period. An anthology of Barakat’s poems in the original Arabic can now be read online. And there are also English translations in the Anthology of Aviva Butt’s book of 20 September 2021(see the References at the end of this article). A previous article on Sages of Darkness published in IJOKS 7 (1) (2022) attempted to establish the genre of Barakat’s novel as psychological realism with philosophical and fantastical elements—the first 50 pages were examined. In this study, I will mention the frequent symbolic relationship of the environment to Kurdish life—as seen in the first approximately 120 pages. A completed English translation of Sages of Darkness, including the remaining 90 pages underway, will hopefully be published by early next year.