Reviews
«The Book of Saladin is the second in a quartet of novels by Tariq Ali on the long encounter between Western Christendom and the world of Islam. Grippingly well told, brilliantly paced, remarkably convincing in its historical depiction of a fateful relationship, it is a narrative for our time, haunted by distant events and characters who are closer to us than we had dreamed.»
– Edward Said

«Ali overturns demonising stereotypes of Salah-al-Din, portraying instead the ‘barbarian’ Western invaders. Whether depicting erotically charged harem intrigue or siege warfare, The Book of Saladin is an entertaining feat of revisionist storytelling.»
– Simon Carnell, Sunday Times

«Episodic, redolent of Middle Eastern epic story cycles, it rearranges the Euro-centric geographical and historical world view ... a story rich with human passion and poetry.»
– Guardian

«Ali’s new historical novel ... is told in a manner which combines the incantatory storytelling of the great Middle Eastern anthologies with the solidarity of historical research.»
– Philip Hensher, Mail on Sunday

«Fiercely lyrical. Weaving political intrigue, gay and straight love, betrayal, cross-dressing, rape, assassination and crimes of passion, Ali’s tale ripples with implicit parallels to our age.»
– Publishers Weekly
========================
Tariq Ali (b. 1943, England)
«Ali remains an outlier and intellectual bomb-thrower; an urbane, Oxford-educated polemicist.»
— Observer

Tariq Ali has written more than two-dozen books on world history and politics—the most recent of which are The Clash of Fundamentalisms, The Obama Syndrome and The Extreme Centre—as well as the novels of his Islam Quintet and scripts for the stage and screen. He is a long-standing member of the editorial committee of New Left Review and lives in London.