The latest addition to my website is Mbarek Ould Beyrouk‘s Saara (Saaara). We get the first person narration of three characters. The eponymous Saara had a violent father, causing her mother to leave and, later, her sister. She has parties and affairs but is something of a lost soul, The young sheikh heads a Sufi community but the local town wants to build a dam where their oasis and land are and he struggles to deal with that. Finally there is a beggar who pretends to be deaf and dumb. Both Saara and the beggar end up in the community but neither finds contentment. All of their stories are told against a background of climate change, political corruption and the entitled rich behaving badly. It is a well-told story but does not offer much hope.