Azazeel

Set in the 5th century AD, Azazeel is the exquisitely crafted tale of a Coptic monk's journey from Upper Egypt to Alexandria and then Syria during a time of massive upheaval in the early Church. Winner of the Arab Booker Prize, Azazeel highlights how the history of our civilization has been warped by greed and avarice since its very beginnings and how one man's beliefs are challenged not only by the malice of the devil, but by the corruption with the early Church. In sparse and often sparkling prose that reflects the arid beauty of the Syrian landscape, Azazeel is a novel that forces us to re-think many of our long-held beliefs and invites us to rediscover a lost history.

A believably human and universal tale of a man, racked with doubt and temptation, on a journey to find himself... The writing is unflashy and sincere, neatly matching the monasticism at the book's heart., An astonishing feat of imaginative fiction... Azazeel might be the most compelling and inventive novel published this year. A triumph.

Youssef Ziedan is an Egyptian scholar who specializes in Arabic and Islamic studies. He is a university professor, a public lecturer, a columnist and a prolific author of more than fifty books.