Places have moods, this novel reminds us. Sometimes Sarmada, a mountain village rising from the Hauran plain of southern Syria, is all 'oblivion, dust and tedium'; at other times it's a shimmering delight, each rock, tree, spring, cliff and cave owning rich histories. Sarmada is also 'a Sheherazade,' a generator of tales... Brimful of magic, Sarmada is a book to be swallowed in rapturous gulps. It's beautifully written and, save the rare plunge into cliche, beautifully translated by Adam Talib. The major theme- frustrated and unleashed libido- slides only once towards porn mode. This is a very Syrian novel, illustrating sectarian co-existence and providing glimpses of the country's mystical and literary wonders. Political history is integrated smoothly into the narrative. Azzam's criticism of dictatorship is scathingly precise. There's a devastating portrait of a Baathist faux-intellectual: a child-hating headmaster who arranges to have a boy tortured. Sarmada is, indirectly, an early novel of the contemporary Arab revolutions. Liberty, Azzam hints, must break out as surely as smothered sexuality. 'All it takes is one breeze to make dust the ruler of the place.'