SOURCE: Chaudhuri, Amit. “Here Is a Little Family.” London Review of Books 14, no. 13 (9 July 1992): 18-19.

In the following excerpt, Chaudhuri maintains that Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree is “a strangely refreshing work in that it gives us a warm and indulgent picture of a certain section of Islamic life.”

Tariq Ali's novel [Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree] is about a noble family of great renown in Moorish Spain. The lives and culture of this family and its retainers are on the edge of extinction: either they must convert from Islam to Christianity, or die at the hands of the armies of Ferdinand and Isabella. The emotions, conflicts and shifts in this novel are no more complex and layered than those to be found in the exhilarating lyrics of an Arab song about love or heroism, but it is a strangely refreshing work in that it gives us a...