And its ill-fated protagonists fare little better.ĭodola’s gift for storytelling and finding trouble, casts her as Scheherazade by way of The Perils of Pauline, while Wanatolia’s sultan is little more than a lecherous, loony-tune caricature of King Shahryar from 1001 Nights. Constructed as a grand romance pitched precariously between Orientalist fantasy and magic realism, with forays into satire, socio-political commentary and historical analysis, Habibi struggles to negotiate these thematic shifting sands, ending up stranded on the author’s heroic ambitions. Thompson’s magnum opus is, above all, a novel of ideas. Over the next six years, their lives take traumatic twists and turns as they inch towards reunion. Soon after, Dodola is forced into service at the Sultan’s harem, leaving Zam home alone. One day, Zam follows her and watches helplessly as she is raped, something that shames and haunts him for the rest of his life. Here they live for nine years as Dodola entertains and enlightens Zam with tales from the Qur’an and the Bible, while secretly prostituting herself to passing caravans for food. At her auction, she flees with Zam, a timorous orphaned boy she calls “Habibi” (Arabic for “My Darling”), and finds sanctuary in an abandoned boat in the middle of the desert. Set in Wanatolia, a fictional Middle Eastern kingdom straddling ancient and modern cultures, a smart, spirited young girl, Dodola, is sold into marriage and later kidnapped by slavers. And it’s on extravagant display throughout Habibi, a sprawling, elaborate fable that takes its cue from The Arabian Nights. A line that inscribes Arabesque patterns and Islamic calligraphy with the same grace that it fleshes out the human form and brings to life a fully realised world. A line that draws together past and present, scripture and history, text and image, ink and blood. In Habibi, Craig Thompson vividly demonstrates the seductive power of the line.

Habibi novel