A Shimmering Red Fish Swims with Me

Book excerpt: A powerful and poetic masterpiece where ordinary people’s dreams play out in a city plagued by government exploitation and crime Shortlisted for the Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation As his wife delivers their child in the next room, a man wakes from the nightmare of a teenage girl’s body lying beneath his bed. In this twilight before birth, Fadel’s epic novel catches us in the confusion between exaltation and despair. The girl, Farah, once dreamed of being a singer in Casablanca, a city standing in the shadow of the tallest minaret in the world. Illuminating the aspirations of those just struggling to make a living, A Shimmering Red Fish Swims with Me is a tour-de-force, a novel of power plays and petty jealousies, deceit and corruption, love and loss, written with Fadel’s masterful, narrative control and searing, historical insight.