At the 2013 Hugo Awards, the Michigan-based author Saladin Ahmed was up for Best Novel, an award that has previously gone to William Gibson and Philip K Dick. His book, Throne of the Crescent Moon, is set in a fantastical version of Caliphate-era Baghdad, where an ageing “ghul-hunter” gets embroiled in a struggle between a tyrannical caliph and a Robin Hood-style thief.
It didn’t win, but there was a consolation. “George R R Martin was the first person to come over and say: ‘Don’t feel too bad, I lost the first three years I was nominated,’” Ahmed says. “He sat me down and had a drink with me.”
Growing up, Ahmed latched on to the few Arab characters he could find in pop culture, such as Indiana Jones’s Egyptian sidekick Sallah. “You look back and think: ‘Gosh, that was pathetic that I got so excited.’ He was a sidekick, a happily colonised guy, but, hey, he looked like he could be my uncle.”
When Ahmed started writing his own fiction, “I knew from the get-go that I was going to write something with a kind of Arab, Islamic flavour to it,” he says. This was partly because of current political tensions. “We live in such a demonising time that just to have a book where all of the heroes are quasi-Muslim and they’re all also either quasi-Arab or quasi-African, that’s a radical statement in itself. I don’t know that there’s a more demonised ideology out there right now and an awareness of that fact is always, always there for me.”
Despite all this, Ahmed is keen to point out that Throne of the Crescent Moon is hardly a political tract. “In the beginning and at the end,” he says, “it’s a swashbuckling adventure, so more than anything I hope that people feel like they spent some nice time in another world. But I do hope that when they come back to their world, they look at it a little differently.”
artslife@thenational.ae
Who was Alfred Nobel?
The Nobel Prize was created by wealthy Swedish chemist and entrepreneur Alfred Nobel.
- In his will he dictated that the bulk of his estate should be used to fund "prizes to those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind".
- Nobel is best known as the inventor of dynamite, but also wrote poetry and drama and could speak Russian, French, English and German by the age of 17. The five original prize categories reflect the interests closest to his heart.
- Nobel died in 1896 but it took until 1901, following a legal battle over his will, before the first prizes were awarded.
THE SIXTH SENSE
Starring: Bruce Willis, Toni Collette, Hayley Joel Osment
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Rating: 5/5
Coming soon
Torno Subito by Massimo Bottura
When the W Dubai – The Palm hotel opens at the end of this year, one of the highlights will be Massimo Bottura’s new restaurant, Torno Subito, which promises “to take guests on a journey back to 1960s Italy”. It is the three Michelinstarred chef’s first venture in Dubai and should be every bit as ambitious as you would expect from the man whose restaurant in Italy, Osteria Francescana, was crowned number one in this year’s list of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants.
Akira Back Dubai
Another exciting opening at the W Dubai – The Palm hotel is South Korean chef Akira Back’s new restaurant, which will continue to showcase some of the finest Asian food in the world. Back, whose Seoul restaurant, Dosa, won a Michelin star last year, describes his menu as, “an innovative Japanese cuisine prepared with a Korean accent”.
Dinner by Heston Blumenthal
The highly experimental chef, whose dishes are as much about spectacle as taste, opens his first restaurant in Dubai next year. Housed at The Royal Atlantis Resort & Residences, Dinner by Heston Blumenthal will feature contemporary twists on recipes that date back to the 1300s, including goats’ milk cheesecake. Always remember with a Blumenthal dish: nothing is quite as it seems.
Tickets
Tickets start at Dh100 for adults, while children can enter free on the opening day. For more information, visit www.mubadalawtc.com.
WHAT IS A BLACK HOLE?
1. Black holes are objects whose gravity is so strong not even light can escape their pull
2. They can be created when massive stars collapse under their own weight
3. Large black holes can also be formed when smaller ones collide and merge
4. The biggest black holes lurk at the centre of many galaxies, including our own
5. Astronomers believe that when the universe was very young, black holes affected how galaxies formed
Who's who in Yemen conflict
Houthis: Iran-backed rebels who occupy Sanaa and run unrecognised government
Yemeni government: Exiled government in Aden led by eight-member Presidential Leadership Council
Southern Transitional Council: Faction in Yemeni government that seeks autonomy for the south
Habrish 'rebels': Tribal-backed forces feuding with STC over control of oil in government territory
Normcore explained
Something of a fashion anomaly, normcore is essentially a celebration of the unremarkable. The term was first popularised by an article in New York magazine in 2014 and has been dubbed “ugly”, “bland’ and "anti-style" by fashion writers. It’s hallmarks are comfort, a lack of pretentiousness and neutrality – it is a trend for those who would rather not stand out from the crowd. For the most part, the style is unisex, favouring loose silhouettes, thrift-shop threads, baseball caps and boyish trainers. It is important to note that normcore is not synonymous with cheapness or low quality; there are high-fashion brands, including Parisian label Vetements, that specialise in this style. Embraced by fashion-forward street-style stars around the globe, it’s uptake in the UAE has been relatively slow.
