What links them is that each is set in a colourful period from the Islamic past and tells an intimate story set against the sweep of history.

Author Biography

Tariq Ali is a writer and film-maker. He has written more than a dozen books on world history an politics, as well as scripts for both stage and screen. The first novel of his Islam Quintet, Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree, was awarded the Archbishop San Clemente del Instituto Rosalia de Castro Prize for Best Foreign Language Fiction published in Spain in 1994. The novels have all been translated into several languages. He is an editor for New Left Review and lives in London.