In this lyrical collection, Omani author Hamoud Saud invites readers into the soul of Muscat, the capital city of Oman, a country famed for its long coastline, rugged mountains, and stark desert landscapes. This geography provides the backdrop for stories that reveal both the beauty and hardship of a country and people on the margins.
Saud's Muscat is not a postcard-perfect city but a living, breathing place of cement forests, forgotten roundabouts, and ravens perched on bank flagpoles. In "The Raven of Ruwi," a narrator wanders the city's commercial district, where Indian music drifts from balconies and the streets are filled with weary bank workers. In "The Sad Donkey of Muscat," a blind man recounts the city's history as told to him by a donkey. And in "Post Office of the Dead," a forgotten postmaster receives letters from Dostoevsky and Kafka, triggering a surreal unraveling of time and identity.
These stories are fabulist in spirit but grounded in the textures of everyday life: the scent of karak tea, the chatter of schoolgirls, the heat rising from asphalt. At once intimate and expansive, The Raven of Ruwi and Other Stories from Oman is a powerful meditation on place, identity, and the stories that cities tell.