Publisher Description

Dusk Visitor is a warning from the Middle East: We are Next. The Dusk Visitor is one of the few works of literature by a Syrian on the subject of the Syrian Civil War, the Assad government, and the authoritarian style of other Arab dictators. Musa Al-Halool is from Raqqa, Syria, with one home in town and a larger family home in a village nearby. He came to the US in 1989 on a Fulbright, took his MA and PhD from Penn State, and has taught American literature in the Arab world for many years.Raqqa was captured by the opposition in 2013 and became the capitol of ISIS the year after and the author begins with an introduction that details his losses, as a Syrian from Raqqa, to ISIS occupiers and US bombing. The heart of The Dusk Visitor is short fiction that paints a dystopian landscape, Kafkaesque, life that appears to offer hope and yet is riven with absurdity, unfreedom, fear, and death.The author reveals his intentions when he titles one section "Che Ti Dice La Patria" a chant used by Italian Fascists in the 1920s and that Hemingway chose for the title of his 1927 short story. The author is well aware that Hemingway warned the world of the rise of Fascism and World War Two in his reports from Italy in the 1920s and from Spain at the time of Guernica. Now, Musa Al-Halool tips us off, in this one phrase. The dystopian world he describes in the Middle East is what awaits the US and Europe. Our current resurgence of undemocratic sentiment, sleeper cells, and militias mirrors what Hemingway was seeing in Europe.The collection of stories harkens back to such classic authors like Franz Kafka, George Orwell, William Golding, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Aldous Huxley, Ray Bradbury and Anthony Burgess.

Author Biography

Born in the eastern countryside of the Syrian province of Raqqa, the erstwhile capital of ISIS, Musa Al-Halool has been a professor of English and Comparative Literature at Taif University, Saudi Arabia, since 2002. He is also a well-known and prolific literary translator in the Arab world with nearly forty titles to his name. He traveled to the United States in 1989 on a Fulbright scholarship, where he obtained his MA and PhD in Comparative Literature from Penn State University in 1991 and 1995.After returning to Syria, Musa Al-Halool taught at Tishreen University for four years before leaving for Jordan, where he taught for three years, and from there to Saudi Arabia. In 2016, ISIS declared him an "apostate" and requisitioned both his country house and in-town villa in Raqqa. He has taught English and American literature.It was in Jordan that Musa Al-Halool started writing short stories and poems in English. Afterward, he began writing in Arabic. He depicts ordinary folk with sympathy. His targets in government and the crony government economy, the corrupt, the arrogant, the mediocre, and the sycophantic—he skewers. Musa Al-Halool's translations include White Carnations by the distinguished Syrian novelist and academic Musa Rahman Abbas (co-translated with Dr Sanna Dhahir), Cune Press 2021.Select Books by Musa Al-Halool Anguished Arabic (criticism in Arabic) From the Herb of Burzoy to the Serpent of Gilgamesh: Reflections on Literary Translation. (translation criticism in Arabic) Exodus to Istanbul (travelogue in Arabic) Literary Translation: Practical Applications in Translating Prose (a bilingual textbook) A New Grammar for the New World Order (poems and short stories in English) Bellwetheristan (a collection of short stories in Arabic)

Review

Political satire and Baudelairean humor can be the only response to the treacherous political atmosphere in Syria. Anyone who dares tell the truth will face the sword of the Sultan, much like the tales of the Arabian Nights. Originally from Raqqa, once the capital of the Islamic State, Musa Al-Halool, professor and translator, lampoons the hypocrisy of the regime and the nature of power in pithy fables, utilizes folk-tales to comment on the domestic life of farmers in the countryside and offers insight into the lives of Syrians, seared by personal tragedy, in vignettes.-Gretchen McCullough, Confessions of a Knight Errant
The Dusk Visitor offers us a simple dream: that a son may have his body rolled-up at last in a rug that was owned by his mother.-Duncan Lyon, Sand, Paper, Stone
The most difficult situations narrated in this collection of short stories are intermingled with a high degree of humor, making it a pleasure to read. Next to its literary merits, it is instructive to those who wish to have a deeper insight into Syrian society.-Nikolaos Van Dam, Destroying a Nation
There is a disquieting quality to the short stories in this volume. Their rhythm mimics the abrupt tempo of lives cut short without warning. It is impossible not to identify with the helplessness of decent folks with families, careers, aspirations, and family homes that represent a lifetime of savings, who are casually annihilated by industrial warfare on one side, and atavistic fanaticism on the other. But for the accident of geography, that could be you!-Shadia B. Drury, Terror and Civilization
In an upside down world where facts are twisted until they lose their mooring in reality and government actions are driven by the personality of the Great Leader, those few who stop, think, and question face utter indifference at the best or ridicule and ruin at the worst.-Scott C. Davis, The Road from Damascus

Long Description

Dusk Visitor is a warning from the Middle East: We are Next. The Dusk Visitor is one of the few works of literature by a Syrian on the subject of the Syrian Civil War, the Assad government, and the authoritarian style of other Arab dictators. Musa Al-Halool is from Raqqa, Syria, with one home in town and a larger family home in a village nearby. He came to the US in 1989 on a Fulbright, took his MA and PhD from Penn State, and has taught American literature in the Arab world for many years. Raqqa was captured by the opposition in 2013 and became the capitol of ISIS the year after and the author begins with an introduction that details his losses, as a Syrian from Raqqa, to ISIS occupiers and US bombing. The heart of The Dusk Visitor is short fiction that paints a dystopian landscape, Kafkaesque, life that appears to offer hope and yet is riven with absurdity, unfreedom, fear, and death. The author reveals his intentions when he titles one section "Che Ti Dice La Patria" a chant used by Italian Fascists in the 1920s and that Hemingway chose for the title of his 1927 short story. The author is well aware that Hemingway warned the world of the rise of Fascism and World War Two in his reports from Italy in the 1920s and from Spain at the time of Guernica. Now, Musa Al-Halool tips us off, in this one phrase. The dystopian world he describes in the Middle East is what awaits the US and Europe. Our current resurgence of undemocratic sentiment, sleeper cells, and militias mirrors what Hemingway was seeing in Europe. The collection of stories harkens back to such classic authors like Franz Kafka, George Orwell, William Golding, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Aldous Huxley, Ray Bradbury and Anthony Burgess.

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