SOURCE: Irwin, Robert. Review of Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree, by Tariq Ali. Times Literary Supplement, no. 4648 (1 May 1992): 20.

In the following review, Irwin discusses Ali's utilization of exposition and metaphors, faulting what he deems to be Ali's lack of imagination in Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree.

“We are living in the most difficult period of our history. We have not had such serious problems since Tarik and Musa first occupied these lands. And you know how long ago that was, do you not?”

Yazid nodded. “In our first century and their eighth.”

Tariq Ali's second novel [Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree], a work of historical fiction, is about the misfortunes of a family of Moors living in the province of Granada in 1500, eight years after the region had been conquered by the Spanish Catholic armies of Ferdinand and Isabella. It is the sort of historical novel in which...