Modern Omani literature is considered to be one of the youngest in the world, as the process of literary renewal in this country started at the turn of the 1960s and 70s. This phenomenon was mainly provoked by two factors: the discovery of oil in the Gulf states in the middle of the 20<sup>th</sup> century, which caused active economic and, then, cultural development not only in Oman, but also in other Arab states of the region; as well as the progressive reforms of Sultan Qaboos bin Sa‘id (1940–2020), who came to power in 1970. To date, modern Omani literature, which is as old as a half a century, has been developing accelerated which is typical for the literatures of many Arab countries [Suvorov, 2012, p. 63].
Moreover, one should mention that Omani literature has become quite attractive for the worldwide readers. The works of Omani writers, little known outside the Arab world until recently, are gradually gaining recognition at the global level. Officially, this recognition is indicated by the nomination of works by Omani writers for prestigious international literary awards. One can draw the examples of ‘Celestial Bodies’ [Seyydat al-qamar] by Jokha alHarthi, which was awarded the Man Booker International Prize in 2019; ‘Dilshad, a Tale of Hunger and Satiety’ [Dilshad: sirat al-jau‘ wa-l-shaba‘] by Bushra Khalfan, which was shortlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction for 2022 [Dilshad: A Tale of Hunger and Satiety]; ‘Exile of the Water Diviner’ [Taghribat al-qafir] by Zahran al-Qasmi, which was awarded the same prize in 2023 [“Taghribat al-qafir”]. Besides, Omani writers have repeatedly won Arab literary awards and prizes.
However, the recognition of Omani literature and its role in the global cultural process extends beyond gaining official awards, since the novels and stories by Omani writers are translated into other languages being actually distributed in other countries. Thus, in 2020, ‘Celestial Bodies’ by al-Harthi was translated into Russian, while the novel ‘The Way of The Bewitched’ [Darb almashura] by Mahmoud al-Rahbi, one of the most prominent representatives of modern Omani literature, whose works have been highly appreciated by Omani and Arab literary critics, was translated into Russian in 2024 [Al-Rahbi, 2024, p. 228].
Mahmoud al-Rahbi (1969) is a writer and essayist. He got an M.A. in Arabic Literature from Mohammed V University of Rabat, as well as an M.A. in Mass Communication from Tunis University; since the early 2000s he has been holding a number of positions in the Ministry of Higher Education, Scientific Research and Innovation of Oman [Voloshchenko, 2023]. He started his literary career as a short story writer in 1998, when his first story collection ‘The Brown Colour’ [Al-lawn albunni] was published. In 2010 his debut novel ‘The Dreamer’s Map’ [Haritat alhalim] was released as well. For now, Mahmoud al-Rahbi has published eleven story collections and six novels. Al-Rahbi also writes articles and essays for a number of Arab newspapers.
Works by Mahmoud al-Rahbi have gained a widespread recognition in the Arab world. He has received a number of Omani and Arabic literary awards. In particular, he was awarded the Best Short Story Collection Award at the Muscat Book Fair for his collection ‘Why Don’t You Joke with Me?’ [Limadha la tamzah ma‘i] (2008); the Cultural Dubai Award for his collection ‘A Swing over Two Periods of Time’ [’Urjuha fawqa zamanayn] (2009); and Sultan Qaboos Award for Culture, Arts, and Literature for his story collection ‘The Noon Hour’ [Sa‘at zawal] (2012) as well. His other works have also been repeatedly nominated for various Arabic literary awards. For example, ‘Drums of the Wadi’ [Tubul alwadi] (2023), considered to be the last novel published by the writer to date, was shortlisted for the Katara Prize for Arabic Novel [Saleh, 2024].
Works of fiction by al-Rahbi can be considered an example of modernist literature. His writings sometimes represent the protagonist’s stream of consciousness, and narration can often be conducted on behalf of several characters. These techniques allow readers not only to immerse themselves in the inner world of the characters, but also to see the same events from different, subjective points of view – this indicates the author’s interest in human individuality. At the same time, alRahbi narrative language is deliberately simple, which, in turn, creates an effect of defamiliarization when describing unusual, sometimes frightening events, causing the reader to feel the absurdity of the situation.
The main theme of the works by al-Rahbi is the depiction of how people react to the unexpected changes taking place in their lives. Often, the characters of alRahbi’s novels and stories turn out to be dependent on stereotypes, public opinion, or the usual lifestyle and think little about the essence of the events occurring, while being wallowed in their everyday routine. And only after finding themselves in a situation when the irrationality of the world surrounding is revealed, the characters are faced with a choice: either to recognize the power of habit and their status quo and obey, or to fight, defending their independence from external conditions and their own view of life. In his works, the writer urges his readers to wake up, shake off the dust of familiar but outdated ideas and live in accordance with their own views of the world.
Al-Rahbi’s novels and stories focus mostly on the subjective experiences of a person, and, being written in a concise style, they can be studied as somewhat abstract, although general stories that can happen to any person, without reference to the specific time, culture and country. Nevertheless, one can also find in the writer’s works depiction of the specific changes that Omanis have had to go through over the past half century. For example the collection ‘Pasture of the Stars’ [Mar‘a annujum] (2015) unites the stories of social changes taking place in the modern Omani village as a result of the reforms of Sultan Qaboos, while in the collection ‘The Scream of Munch’ [Sarhat munsh] (2019), stories about the psychological problems faced by modern Omanis are presented [Voloshchenko, 2023].
It is worth noting here, as Omani writer and journalist Suleiman al-Ma‘mari does, that Omani writers can be generally characterized by their interest in the national history and national culture of Oman, the study of which allows them to understand the changes that have taken place in the region and the current state of Oman better [Al-‘Awisi, 2025]. Suleiman al-Ma‘mari also states that Omani writers are distinguished by their ability to go beyond narrow national and regional themes, rising through the description of purely Omani problems to universal human issues, which, according to the journalist, contributes to the global recognition of Omani literature [Al-‘Awisi, 2025]. In this regard, Mahmoud alRahbi’s works can be considered a distinctive example of modern Omani prose. And those trends of Omani literature are most vividly represented in his aforementioned novel ‘Drums of the Wadi’. It is in this work that the author, revealing a wide panorama of Oman public life in the 1980s, when the results of Sultan Qaboos’ reforms began to take full effect, not only reflects on the past, present and future of his country, but also discusses the conflict of traditions and innovation, characteristic of any societies at turning points of their history.
‘Drums of the Wadi’ can be described as a kind of bildungsroman, as its plot is devoted to the story of formation and personal development of a young Omani named Salim, a son of a sheikh of the settlement of Wadi al-Sahtan, located in the mountainous fertile region of Oman. The main character’s father, the strict Sheikh Muhsin, is the epitome of the patriarchal traditional Arab lifestyle. He is demanding of his eldest son, because the latter is supposed to take his position in the village once. Therefore, the life of young Salim is strictly regulated:
‘You are the son of the sheikh, you are the older one. You must be a man, even if you are still young’ [Al-Rahbi, 2023, ṣ. 57].
‘One could not describe his father’s pleasure when he told Salim to climb four palm trees in one hour, which was his daily practice. These daily tasks were part of the harsh upbringing with which his father intended to prepare the one who would one day inherit his sheikhdom’ [Al-Rahbi, 2023, ṣ. 75].
However, the youth is burdened by his position. He, like other boys, is attracted to everything forbidden: he secretly smokes and listens to ‘indecent’ music. One day his father finds out about this, and the sheikh threatens to kill Salim, picking up a rifle and shooting his son. The protagonist escapes from home and gets to Wadi ‘Adai, a suburb of the capital of Oman, Muscat.
Now the main character is on his own, but he has neither money nor a roof over his head. First, he spends a night in a mosque, where he steals a pair of shoes he likes, and orders his first meal in the town at a local restaurant, from where he escapes without paying. However, pride does not allow him to sink completely and follow the path of theft. Soon he meets a Hindu named Shabut, who sells Indian sweets. Seeing that the humble Hindu’s trade is not going well, Salim offers his help in selling sweets. Very soon, the youth begins to sell sweets quickly and successfully, earning much money which surprises his new acquaintance. Salim settles with Shabut in a workers’ house, most of whom are also Hindus. Gradually, the assertive and insolent features of the protagonist get revealed: in order to sell sweets, he pretends to raise money for the treatment of his sick mother, sometimes forcing people to purchase his goods. When Shabut, having realized Salim’s cunning, tries to repeat his success on his own, Salim slanders his Hindu partner in front of the residents of the town. Finally, the protagonist takes over the entire business by exploiting Shabut. The meek Hindu remains to serve Salim, because they need each other: Shabut only knows the secret of making sweets, but the Hindu himself cannot conduct a successful trade without this youth.
The main character also meets an old merchant Zahran, who fled to Oman from the revolution in Zanzibar in 1964, and the old man and the youth become friends. Having earned more money, Salim acquires a part of Zahran’s shop, from where he can conduct trade, as well as a car, hiring another Hindu as a driver. The protagonist’s life is getting better, but he does not stop missing his home.
Everything changes when Salim receives the news of his father’s death. On the same day, the character sets off by car to attend the sheikh’s funeral, but night catches him on the way. The youth decides to take a shortcut in the dark and ends up in a cemetery, where his car hits a tombstone and breaks down. The character decides to wait for morning only to discover that the slab his car ran into is a tombstone on his father’s grave. Salim gets to his home, where he finds out that all the time his father was missing him very much and did not want to kill his son at all, but only thought to scare him. Salim becomes the new sheikh of Wadi alSahtan.
Soon Zahran arrives in the village to visit his young friend. Having successfully provided medical care to several people in need, the old man becomes a local celebrity: patients from all the surrounding settlements flock to him, although Zahran’s methods of treatment are medieval (spells, amulets, etc.), and not everyone survives. In turn, Salim is burdened by his new duties as a sheikh. He reflects on his fate, looking for a way to get rid of the dignity he does not want and return to a free life in Wadi ‘Adai. The author makes it clear that Salim is ready to renounce his sheikdom in favor of Zahran, whose authority in the village is growing. The ending of the novel remains open.
‘Drums of the Wadi’ is a relatively short novel (about 170 pages) consisting of four parts. Regarding its form, the work attracts attention by the variety of languages the author used in the text. While al-Rahbi’s previous novels were written in classical Arabic, ‘Drums of the Wadi’ contains many words and expressions from the Omani dialect. Such characters as Shabut and Zahran use not only dialect expressions in their speech, but also words from Urdu, Hindi and Swahili – all these languages are largely represented in Oman, whose culture mixes Arabic, African and South Asian influences. Oman cultural diversity is also highlighted by a detailed description of the local cuisine, which includes Omani sweet noodles swiwia, Indian keema and dal, or a Zanzibar meal of bananas and salted fish, as well as the more usual dates and coffee. The author also describes the life of an Omani village: the construction of houses and public baths, the daily routine and duties of a tribal sheikh, the belongings of a street vendor, etc. In particular, al-Rahbi describes in detail a celebration common in the Arab countries of the Persian Gulf, which marks the child’s first complete reading of the Quran. This activity is accompanied by a special ritual song called ‘taymina’ which full text the author provides as well.
Songs, both folk and art, occupy a special place in the text of the novel. Thus, Salim, along with his peers, listens to ‘indecent’ songs, which al-Rahbi also cites:
‘What a beautiful night it was
With the one turned blushed.
She hugged me, she kissed me,
Huddling her chest to mine...
Undo the buttons and show me,
Show me those breasts that are like crystal,
Like quince fruits and I would fall
As if I were dead between them,
Between these two breasts…’ [Al-Rahbi, 2023, ṣ. 16, 21]
In his turn, Zahran recites the Omani folk poetry maidan, for example: ‘Bring me the dates that are in Zanzibar’, or ‘There was a magpie over the mountain...’ [Al-Rahbi, 2023, ṣ. 112]. Thus, the novel ‘Drums of the Wadi’ conveys all the diversity of Oman, which makes this work a real encyclopedia of the culture of this country.
Regarding the form of the novel, it is also worth noting that, as in many other novels by al-Rahbi, the narration here is conducted from different persons: in the first and third parts, as well as in the last chapter of the fourth part, the story is told by Salim himself, while in the rest of the novel it is presented from the third party. On the one hand, this narration method allows readers to immerse themselves in the inner world of the protagonist through the stream of his consciousness, seeing the world through the prism of subjective perception of a youth rebelling against his father’s orders; on the other hand, this helps to get acquainted with the facts, the actual events. This difference is especially obvious when comparing the first and second parts of the novel, when Salim’s sentimental, self-justifying speech is replaced by an outside description of his real actions, which reveal the true, by no means innocent nature of the character.
With the same technique of stream of consciousness, al-Rahbi seeks to evoke the effect of defamiliarization, when familiar things and phenomena (in this case, quite a common conflict between parent and child, shown from Salim’s point of view) are presented in a different light. Thus, in the first chapter, which describes Salim’s escape, it is unclear who the main character is, it is unclear where and why he is fleeing from, and why he is so afraid of his father – the author heightens the tension, plunging readers into Salim’s fevered, confused mind. In the second chapter, which is a flashback and explains what is happening, the reader’s expectations decrease dramatically, as it turns out that the protagonist is still a teenager and he just wants to smoke and listen to music, which his father, the sheikh, does not approve of. However, in the third chapter, it turns out that due to these youth desires, a quarrel occurs between Salim and his father, which escalates into a fight, during which the sheikh grabs a rifle and shoots his own son. So, an ordinary situation leads to very dramatic consequences. At the same time, the author, while telling the story of the conflict, seems to delay its explanation: even the scene of Salim’s quarrel with his father is preceded by a detailed, several-page description of the room in the sheikh’s house, in addition to the appearance of the sheikh himself and the main character. Al-Rahbi seems to use Salim’s story as a kind of excuse to make readers recall similar situations from their own lives and to come from the eternal conflict between parent and child to broader issues that concern the writer: changes in the life of an individual and society, the confrontation of individual desires and the established way of life.
As al-Rahbi’s previous novels and stories, ‘Drums of the Wadi’ deals with the problem of one’s personal freedom and the extent to which he can reject the established order and the views and stereotypes imposed on him. The main character Salim is typical for al-Rahbi’s works, as his whole life is determined not by himself, but by society and traditions. Salim is the son of a sheikh, and therefore he must behave appropriately, but this is contrary to his nature:
‘I was forced to listen to all this [conversation between father and the peasants], but I couldn’t say a word. I just had to take lessons from my father in silence. And when the time comes, I shall behave myself exactly like him. But my father is dead, and the time has come. Am I fit to take his place? I don’t think it is possible…’ [Al-Rahbi, 2023, ṣ. 163]
The traditional society imposes a framework on one’s very personality, giving him an external, heteronomous definition that does not correspond to the self-awareness of this person. In such a case, the teenage desire to smoke is just a trigger for further development of selfdetermination:
‘My father only wanted me to become his heir, but in the way his father wanted him. I was named after my grandfather, but the name means nothing if it is impossible to acquire the other qualities.… It is unfair that I have to give up freedom after I have tasted it and experienced it. And cigarettes are just an excuse to break out of these invisible chains’ [Al-Rahbi, 2023, ṣ. 166].
This is not only Salim who suffers from the ‘order of the fathers’. In the novel, al-Rahbi also portrays an unfortunate madman called ‘Isa, who wanted to marry his cousin, but was rejected by her father and, being unable to bear it, went mad. Now, ‘Isa spends his days wandering aimlessly along the streets of Wadi alSahtan, drawing hearts pierced by arrows in the sand. The story of this character refers to the legendary Arab poet Qays bin al-Mulawwah also known as Majnun, who also went mad with love for his tribeswoman Leyla, whom he could not marry because of the traditions of the tribe. In the very same way the author uses the story of ‘Isa to criticize the harsh social principles that limit the will of the individual.
As a result, the characters of al-Rahbi’s novel find themselves at a crossroads, as they have to choose one of two ways: either submit to circumstances, or fight for their freedom and self-determination. ‘Isa is unable to resist external pressure, which is why he goes mad, while his madness turns out to be a kind of salvation: at least now he becomes outwardly free from the social norms that bound him and he can smoke without hesitation, for example. In turn, Salim does not want to put up with the fact that ‘the son is absolutely a property of his father’ [Al-Rahbi, 2023, ṣ. 57], choosing the way of struggle, which takes the form of a teenage rebellion.
In one of his interviews, al-Rahbi notes that Salim’s father is the personification of harsh traditions, while Salim himself embodies will to freedom [Saleh, 2024]. The main character rejects the path made for him by previous generations and chooses his own, difficult and thorny one, but it is in this life struggle that he finds the opportunity to realize himself. Considering the fact that the events of the novel take place in the 1980s, when the first results of Sultan Qaboos reforms became fully apparent, the author’s message acquires a broader connotation: Salim embodies a whole generation of young Omanis who have thrown off the shackles of traditions and have the opportunity to create their own future independently.
Thus, the novel can be considered from three points of view. Firstly, as already noted, this is a bildungsroman, a story of personal development of an individual who discovers both himself and the world around him. Secondly, it is a universal story of the confrontation of generations, the existential struggle of the new against the old; the drive to independence and self-determination against attraction to tradition and order. Finally, such a somewhat abstract plot, equally understandable to all peoples of all times, can be considered from a particularly historical perspective as the author’s view on the changes that have taken place in Oman over the past half century. In his novel, al-Rahbi deals with the inevitability of renewal as well as the eternal search for its own ways by the new generations, rebelling against outdated order. Therefore, the very process of cultural renewal in Oman, both the one that occurred in the last third of the 20<sup>th</sup> century and the one that may occur in the future, is natural.
The progressive position of the author is indicated even by his use of the aforementioned ‘forbidden’ songs in the novel. It is known that secular music and singing are not welcome in Islam. However, the writer himself, in his article on love in Omani songwriting, notes that such songs, despite all their sensuality and eroticism, have long become an integral part of Omani culture and festive events like weddings are rarely held without them [Al-Rahbi, 2021]. Thus, the songs used in the novel, whether they are ritual taymina, carefree maidan or love qasida, expressing lively human feelings, are opposed to the official ‘culture of silence’, against which, in particular, Salim rebels. No wonder that he says about his peers who share his teenage hobbies:
‘These devils seem to know how to live this life, despite all this silence’ [Al-Rahbi, 2023, ṣ. 18].
This is how ‘indecent’ songs that originate in the people themselves, expressing their genuine, customs-suppressed moods, become the norm, no longer denied. Thus, the author leads his readers to believe that similar processes occur in society, in which, over time, the individual is liberated, acquiring more and more freedom.
Al-Rahbi’s views on the changes that have taken place in Oman are reflected in the chronotope of the novel. One can see this when comparing the main locations of the novel: Wadi al-Sahtan and Wadi ‘Adai. The first place is a village with a patriarchal and wellestablished lifestyle. Wadi al-Sahtan is famous for its oases and gardens, for which it is known as ‘mandus ‘uman’, i.e. ‘the treasury of Oman’. The protagonist associates this place not only with his stern father, but also with his tender and loving mother, and the entire seventh chapter of the novel (‘Shadow of the Mother’) is devoted to memories about her. Wadi al-Sahtan is a kind of a big caring family for Salim:
‘All men were my fathers, all women were my mothers, and all the houses, open to any guest, were my homes’ [Al-Rahbi, 2023, ṣ. 56].
Like a real family, the Wadi al-Sahtan community watches closely the behavior of its members, preventing unruliness and bad habits – for the benefit of everyone individually and collectively. Hence the solidity of traditions, from the pressure of which Salim is trying to escape.
This rural community is contrasted with Wadi ‘Adai, one of the capital suburbs, a kind of a town where no one cares about each other. A number of pages are devoted to describing the difference between a village and a town – not in favor of the latter:
‘He noticed the doors always closed, and people walking without talking to each other or stopping in front of those passing by. Never in his life had he seen this before: in the village, everyone was interested in others and participated in all their feelings, both joyful and sad’ [Al-Rahbi, 2023, ṣ. 64].
Even animals cannot find a happy life in the town:
‘He saw other pigeons hiding at the base of the air conditioners and in the cracks of the walls, where they could hardly build their little nests, some of which hung on the edge between heaven and earth. He compared them to those merry birds in his village that were making noise and fighting, flying freely from one branch to another...’ [Al-Rahbi, 2023, ṣ. 85]
Wadi ‘Adai can be characterized by the outward aloofness of its inhabitants: here everyone is on their own and owes nothing to anyone. This isolation and disconnection of the town’s inhabitants is explained by the fact that they are a kind of a mixture of different nations who only by chance came together on this small piece of land:
‘Everywhere, he could hear voices mixed together. Various dialects and languages reached his ears, but his consciousness did not distinguish any meaning in them. This hubbub that he heard was a mixture of Arabic, Hindi, Baloch and African languages, and among them Omani dialects broke through, different in articulation, nature and sounds’ [Al-Rahbi, 2023, ṣ. 67].
The entire diversity of Wadi ‘Adai population is embodied by the Hindu Shabut, who speaks an unimaginable blend of broken Arabic (and its several dialects), Urdu and Hindi. On the one hand, Shabut’s speech is a specific everyday feature that conveys the real situation of mixing different peoples in Oman. On the other hand, his strange language becomes a symbol of globalization, which is perceived by the stunned Salim as an indistinguishable confusion of different languages. The same can be said about Wadi ‘Adai itself. On the one hand, the description of this suburb objectively corresponds to the multinational and multicultural urban environment that has developed in Oman over the many years of migration of peoples who had trade relations with the country. However, in the context of the novel, Wadi ‘Adai can be viewed not only as the embodiment of the city as an antithesis of the village, but also as a symbol of a new stage in the development of Oman, which has reached the international level due to the reforms of Sultan Qaboos and is now entering into communication with other nations. And an ordinary Omani, unaccustomed to this multilingual polyphony and whose whole life was recently limited by the usual way of life and traditions of his native village, now has to get acquainted with the new order that globalization imposes. However, it is in this seemingly disconnected society that the individual has the opportunity to reach his full potential, as he is no longer constrained by the rules of the traditional community. The mixing of peoples in the era of globalization has destroyed old social institutions, giving way to the self-affirmation of a loner who relies only on himself. One can draw an example of Salim, who is trying to realize himself in Wadi ‘Adai among strangers, with whom he is connected only by those bonds that he himself is ready to accept.
Thus, Wadi al-Sahtan can be considered as the embodiment of the prereformation structure of Omani society, when life was determined by the ties, which were predominantly tribal and regulated by traditions. In general, it was a closed society with little contact with the outside world. But as a result of the reforms and joining the globalization processes, Oman entered the international arena, and the old way of life was replaced by a new, fast and active one, in which people have to interact based on their common interests. Thus, Oman moved from a separate nation, a kind of family, which symbol is Wadi al-Sahtan, to the cosmopolitanism of Wadi ‘Adai. This move is embodied in the life of Salim, who runs a joint business with Hindus, with whom he is united by his desire to survive in this new world.
In its turn, Salim’s flight from Wadi al-Sahtan to Wadi ‘Adai symbolizes the civilizational leap that young Omanis of the protagonist’s generation have made, breaking away from their usual closed lifestyle and joining the world of globalization. However, the rapidity with which Salim rejected the traditions of his ancestors played a bad joke with him: in pursuit of self-realization and satisfaction of his desires and ambitions, the youth, who had left his community with its strict raising methods, began to demonstrate antisocial personality traits. Unwilling to become a real thief, Salim, however, begins to exploit other people’s labor, imposing his goods on customers, and even slandering his partner Shabut, so that make the latter serve him. The protagonist himself turns out to be incapable of producing anything, as soon as he is too accustomed to his community’s support which provided him with all he needed for survival. So, after having left his native village, the youth can do nothing but parasitize the working Hindus. Assertiveness and punchy abilities turn Salim into an insolent, unscrupulous businessman, a representative of a new stratum of Omani society. This kind of people has been criticized repeatedly in Omani fiction, which indicates the relevance of this topic. Examples include ’Abu Halfan from ‘Ali al-Ma‘mari’s novel ‘The Whisper of the Bridges’ [Hams al-jusur] (2007) and Hammud al-Jabali from Sa‘ud al-Mudhaffar’s trilogy ‘Men from the Hajar Mountains’ [Rijal min jibal al-hajar] (2013). However, while al-Ma‘mari, taking a leftist position, criticizes such Omani businessmen for their conformism and aiding the state [Voloshchenko, 2024, p. 28–29], al-Mudhaffar, speaking, on the contrary, from a conservative point of view, criticizes them for rejecting moral values [Al-Ma‘mari, 2019].
In contrast, al-Rahbi’s view of this new social type is dialectical, and therefore more objective. On the one hand, the author recognizes the right of every individual for selfdetermination and self-realization. Thus, the entire last chapter of the novel is a kind of apology for Salim, who explains to himself (and at the same time to the readers) why he cannot accept the title inherited from his father and stay in his native village. Salim’s speech is very emotional, which makes it obvious that the author himself sincerely empathizes with this youth, who, owing to custom, is forced to do something repulsive to him. On the other hand, al-Rahbi shows what happens to a person who has been deprived of the very moral guidelines that society provides: respect for others, a sense of responsibility for one’s actions, etc. Having got rid of the influence of these social norms, having broken away from the traditions that shaped his personality, Salim becomes a victim of his own ambitions, which he cannot satisfy in any way, and, finally, he finds himself overcome by longing for his parents and a carefree life in Wadi alSahtan. Based on the idea that Salim embodies those Omanis who adopted a new way of life in the 1980s, we can say that the author considers them as a kind of ‘lost generation’: the changes provoked by the reforms of Sultan Qaboos were inevitable, and Omani society had to start interacting with the entire world sooner or later. However, a sharp break with the traditional lifestyle that has been shaping the consciousness of Omanis for centuries has led to a loss of identity; not to selfawareness, but to confusion. Thus, the individual’s absolute freedom turns into chaos.
In this vein, one can see the symbolism of the novel’s culmination scene: the main character, rushing to his father’s funeral, crashes into the latter’s grave in the cemetery at night. Salim seems to be trampling his own father’s grave, thus trampling his own past, while rushing in a car which is a symbol of his success. As if in revenge for this, the very traditional, patriarchal past, which had already been buried, stands in the way of the new society, preventing it from moving on. Salim again finds himself at a crossroads, and for the rest of the story he agonizes over which path to choose: whether to return to a free life in Wadi ‘Adai, abandoning everything, or obey the circumstances. This scene seems to be a calling, first of all to the Omanis, to stop and think about their past, present and future. The author asks his readers the question, whether it is possible to move forward with complete oblivion of the past. Al-Rahbi states that moving forward is necessary, a person must have the courage to act independently, but whether it is possible at the same time to reject his past along with all the features that has formed a part of the human personality. The ending of the novel remains open, because the writer only poses questions, without giving a final answer and leaving the decision to the readers.