Heads Ripe Plucking

By Mahmoud Al-Wardani

An Arab tyrant once famously declared, 'I see heads that are ripe for plucking.' In Mahmoud Al-Wardani's novel an impaled head recounts similar woes it sustained in previous incarnations. Beheadings, both literal and metaphorical are the subject of the six stories in Heads Ripe Plucking. The narrative takes us from the most archetypal beheading in Arabo-Islamic history, that of al-Husayn, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, via the torture of communists in Nasser’s detention camps, and the meanderings of a Cairene teenager unwittingly caught in the “bread riots” of 1977. Mahmoud Al-Wardani’s novel garnered critical acclaim for its experimentation with language and its excavation of alternative histories.

Mahmoud Al-Wardani, born in Cairo in 1950, is a writer and cultural journalist.  He is athe author of six novels and three collections of short stories.