Description

Tengour sets in The old man from the mountain three historical figures in scene: Hassan as-Sabah, prototype of the fanatical Islamist sect leader, who in the 12th century in his mountain fortress Alamut in the Persian Khorassan conditioned 60,000 hashish-intoxicated followers to become terrorists (“assassins”) in order to eliminate political opponents. Next to them Nizam al-Mulk, the Persian grand vizier, who is considered the epitome of the unscrupulous, pragmatic power politician, and Omar Khajjam, the famous poet-astronomer from Nischapur, to whom the world dies Rubaiyyat, melancholy quatrains, and the solution of algebraic equations of the third degree, who, however, misses life in Tengour's observatory for fear of getting his hands dirty.

Habib Tengour catapults his characters from the locations of the Middle Ages in the Middle East – Alamut, Nischapur, Qom and Baghdad – sometimes into the Parisian emigrant milieu, sometimes into present-day Algeria. Jumping across epochs and continents, which sharpens the eye for historical parallels and makes Tengour's novel - a poetic plea for pluralism and tolerance against the background of the decline of the once brilliant Abbasid Empire (750-1258) - appear more relevant today than ever. The Algerian poet tells of the enthusiasm of a country that is rediscovering its strengths.

Reviews and press:

Southgerman newspaper:

The Algerian poet tells of the enthusiasm of a country that is rediscovering its strengths. (...) more

The Algerian-French poet Habib Tengour delves deep into the Persian Middle Ages and describes a legendary male alliance that fatally welds together a religious terrorist, a supple power politician and a poetic mathematician. (...) more

– Volker Kaminski, Qatar