At the wall of the almighty

by Farnoosh Moshiri

But Loony Kamal, the prison guard, doesn't believe him. Is it really possible for a man to forget who he is? To lose every shred of memory? Loony Kamal is bent on finding out. Our narrator, though, is even more determined to survive. Their relationship - with its inhuman brutality and surprising tenderness - lies at the complicated heart of Farnoosh Moshiri's extraordinary debut novel. Which is where we quickly find ourselves, too, for we want what each man wants: like Kamal, we want to know more about our hero; like our hero, we long for his escape from Kamal's grasp and the prison's walls. As if he were a tatter-day Sheherazade, our hero fights for his life by retreating into a world of stories - or memories? - of grandmothers and peacocks, love songs and saffron smells, and the softness of a young girl's hand pulling him up onto a magic carpet that flies down New Spring Street, over the crooked houses, to the Almighty Wall, which All the Bricklayer stacks taller every night. The gri