The Scarecrow

The Scarecrow is the final volume of Ibrahim al-KoniÕs desert trilogy, which chronicles the founding, flourishing, and decline of a Saharan oasis. Fittingly, this continuation of a tale of greed and corruption opens with a meeting of the conspirators who assassinated the communityÕs leader at the end of the previous novel, The Puppet. They punished him for opposing the use of gold in business transactionsÑa symptom of a critical break with their nomadic pastÑand now they must search for a leader who shares their fetishistic love of gold. A desert retreat inspires the group to select a leader at random, but their choice, it appears, is not entirely human. This interloper from the spirit world proves a self-righteous despot, whose intolerance of humanity presages disaster for an oasis besieged by an international alliance. Though al-Koni has repeatedly stressed that he is not a political author, readers may see parallels not only to a former Libyan ruler but to other tyrantsÑpast and presentÑwho appear as hollow as a scarecrow.