Samarkand (Interlink World Fiction) Paperback – September 1, 2003

A timeless Masterpiece of epic proportions, beauty and depth!

Novels help our imagination to live other time and places. I am traveling to Samarkand next month and was very satisfied with the book.

I had never heard of this author before Samarkand… Beautifully crafted story where reality is intertwined with fiction told in a personable voice of a likable narrator…

I was very excited with the prospects of reading a good novel about Persia, especially about Omar Khayyam, but this book left me with an overall sense of disappointment. There is no doubt that Maalouf did superb research for this book and the story has its nice moments. But, I cannot agree with the rave reviews on his writing skills. I felt that he took the easy way out with all aspects of writing. Instead of trying to interlink the two stories (one is of Khayyam, the other is a modern love story/ historical adventure) with flashbacks to the time of Khayyam, for example, he wrote one story first. Then, wrote the second (book II). Even with this easy method, he didn't do a good job. Book I mostly reads as a novel about Khayyam, but when it is convenient, he switches his tone and makes references to historical data as if it is a non-fiction book. With Book II, I thought character development was pretty lame. I never fully understood the hero's (actually he didn't do anything heroic in my opinion) motivation to pursue his travels. I think he was bored, rich and had nothing better to do. I also thought the author showed clear prejudice against Turks. Anyone who was Turkish was described with a negative attribute. Also, throwing in Titanic and talk about the whole disaster in the length of 3 pages was very lame. Couldn't he come up with a better solution for the fate of the greatest Oriental book ever?

Simply beautiful! Omar Khayyam would be proud by reading it! A true masterpiece of literature and story telling. Now to Samarkand!

Maalouf takes the reader on a voyage in space and time while providing deep analyses of the Orient. It is a book that wakens your senses and is rich with meanings. Read it if you want to understand the intricacies and the psyche of the Orient. The English translation has unfortunately few typos. Otherwise the book is sublime.

The story of Samarkand is woven around the history of the manuscript of the Rubaiyaat of Omar Khayyam, from its creation by the poet and sage in eleventh-century Persia to its loss when the Titanic sank in 1912. Unwittingly involved in a brawl on the streets of Samarkand, Omar Khayyam is brought before a local judge who recognizes his genius as a poet and gives him a blank book in which to inscribe his verses. Thus the head of a great poet is saved and the Rubaiyaat of Omar Khayyam is born. The threads of his life become interwoven with the designs of the vizier, Nizam al Mulk, and of Hassan Sabbah, the founder of the Order of the Assassins who later hides the precious manuscript in his famous mountain fortress. At the end of the nineteenth century the poems fire the imagination of the West in Edward Fitzgerald's evocative translation. An American scholar learns of the manuscript's survival and recovers it with the help of a Persian princess. Together they take it on the fateful voyage of the Titanic.

Amin Maalouf is a rare writer. His novels work so well not only because he writes with such beauty and clarity, but creates such wonderful stories. One can learn a great deal about the time period in which he writes, but you will find that his characters face fortune and tragedy in equal amounts. To say that he is merely cultivated is to underrepresent his sensitive and humane writing.