The Desert and the Drum

Author: Mbarek Ould Beyrouk

Translator: Rachael McGill   Cover design: Marie Lane   Cover illustration: ReeM Al-Rawi  

… the narrative bristles with interesting characters and essential questions. Also, through Rayhana's gaze, we can see the strangeness of our own contemporary urban lives afresh.

Marcia Lynx Qualey in Qantara

an easy and enjoyable read.

July Blalack in Arablit

The Desert and the Drum is a nicely turned novel of the clashes of tradition and modernity - not so much versus each other but the clashes within each. The constricted tribal ways are challenged by modernity but the faults that prove so damaging here are inherent to it: Rayhana is battered and broken by the demands of traditions, the 'other world' of modernity is something of a release valve, yet also doesn't offer true escape.
Beyond how it treats these themes, much of the appeal of The Desert and the Drum is in the presentation of local color, Beyrouk presenting contemporary Mauritania, on its smallest and most isolated scale as well as on the bustling modern-metropolitan one, very nicely through Rayhana and her experiences. So much she experiences is almost beyond words - such as the machinery the foreigners bring for their mining expedition and what they are doing to the land - but that goes just as much for her emotional experiences across her various stations, and her wide-eyed fumbling efforts to express all this that is new and unknown to her (and, often, her tribe) make for an impressive narrative.

M.A.Orthofer in The Complete Review

'Translator McGill has found a register that is at once simple and precise, conveying images that spark both surprise and recognition. Take the description of Rayhana’s friend regarding her so intently that it seems as if she is trying ‘to mount the horses of [Rayhana’s] words and ride right inside [her]’ or this portrayal of her mother, who ‘had crossed the Sahara of doubt long ago, never to return’. Such phrases at once root the story in its setting and convey its sense to readers everywhere.
This balancing of the specific and the universal is perhaps the book’s greatest strength. Grounded in the traditions that drive it and yet brimming with observations that are true wherever you read them, the novel bears the hallmark of great literature, making one little corner of the world an everywhere in which all manner of people can meet.
The Desert and the Drum is an exciting and compelling addition to the anglophone library. While it is unreasonable to expect one book to bear the weight of representing an entire nation there is no doubt that this is a great ambassador for Mauritanian literature.'

Ann Morgan in A Year of Reading the World

This here is apparently the first novel from a Mauritanian author to be translated into English. Mbarek Ould Beyrouk delivers on this commendation with an evocative, tumultuous journey into the strained heart of his country. This is the saga of Rayhana, a young Bedouin girl from the edges of the Sahara who, after meeting a stranger from beyond the tribe, abandons her home and the old ways of her family due to an unforgivable betrayal. Following her as she steals their sacred tombol drum and leaves the wadis and open skies for the distant cities, Beyrouk explores the beauties and brutalities of modern Mauritania with delicacy, wit, and verve. DH

Dafydd Haine in Buzz Magazine

Young Rayhana is fleeing her Bedouin tribe in an act of rebellious rage, carrying their sacred drum on her back as she escapes toward the city. Scarred by the patriarchal system’s treatment, Rayhana is determined to leave a mark on the tribe that caused her so much emotional trauma. But now she must enter the metropolis and find a needle in a haystack, and as she searches for a person who once treated her kindly, she finds the modern world tangling and pushing against the Bedouin world she grew up in.

Book Riot