IN SEARCH OF WALID MASOUD

First published in 1978, this intricate Palestinian novel recounts in fragmentary form the complex legacy left behind (along with an enigmatic tape recording discovered after his unexplained disappearance) by the eponymous Walid: a financial expert, author, and political activist in Baghdad during the quarter-century following the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. The memories and speculations of those who presume they knew him, or believe they were loved by him, gradually cohere into a cryptic and fascinating portrayal of a conflicted intellectual idealist who had striven “to be a saint in a world of sin and corruption, an independent theorist in a world of political parties, and undogmatic dogmatist in a world of rigid primness.” Beautifully fashioned, unusual, and richly satisfying.