“For all of its provocative ideas and sometimes eerily prescient incidents, Alamut is also successful simply as an entertaining yarn… Bartol devises a shifting collage of passions, adventure, and sacrifice. The book’s exotic settings are sumptuously described, and the characters are charismatic and complex—despite the fervent aims of some of them to subscribe to single-minded devotion.”
“Alamut is… a finely wrought, undiscovered minor masterpiece that offers… a wealth of meticulously planned and executed detail and broad potential for symbolic, intertextual, and philosophical interpretation.”
“Whoever wants to understand the success of the Al Qaeda leader’s strategy should read Bartol. It is as if Osama bin Laden himself concocted the most powerful fist of his organization only after reading Alamut! The dates line up fatally: The novel was published in Iran in 1995 and was clearly so attractive that it was translated again within four years. In 1996 the suicide attack on the American Embassy in Kenya begins.”
Copyright
Translation copyright © 2007 by Michael Biggins. North American Trade Edition © 2007.
English Translation © 2011 North Atlantic Books. Afterword © 2004 Michael Biggins.
© 1988 Editions Phébus, Paris.
All rights reserved. No portion of this book, except for brief review, may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the written permission of the publishers. For information contact North Atlantic Books. The translation was made possible in part by a grant from 4Culture, Seattle, Washington.
Published by North Atlantic Books
P.O. Box 12327
Berkeley, California 94712
Cover image by Shirin Neshat: “Untitled.” 1996 RC print & ink (photo taken by Larry Barns) 47-7/8 × 33-3/4 inches © 1996 Shirin Neshat, courtesy Gladstone Gallery, New York
Cover design © 2007, Ayelet Maida, A/M Studios.
Writing on hand by Forough Farokhzad:
Alamut is sponsored by the Society for the Study of Native Arts and Sciences, a nonprofit educational corporation whose goals are to develop an educational and cross-cultural perspective linking various scientific, social, and artistic fields; to nurture a holistic view of arts, sciences, humanities, and healing; and to publish and distribute literature on the relationship of mind, body, and nature.
North Atlantic Books’ publications are available through most bookstores. For further information, visit our website at www.northatlanticbooks.com or call 800-733-3000.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bartol, Vladimir, 1903–1967.
[Alamut. English]
Alamut / Vladimir Bartol; translated by Michael Biggins.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-1-58394-695-4
1. Hasan ibn al-Sabbah, d. 1124–Fiction. I. Biggins, Michael.
PG1918.B33A7813 2007
891.8′435—dc22
2007022226
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