Un livre remarquable. Poétique et d’un style époustouflant. ( )

Nine travelers, of different faiths, backgrounds, and races, are all changed forever on one fateful day, by their encounter with a single leather saddlebag.

The story is told from the viewpoint of each of the nine travelers in turn, starting with a Bedouin thief who steals the saddlebag from a man he takes to be a rich merchant. This act seems to set the entire story in motion, but as we learn the stories of the other travelers, it become less clear where the story truly began. Did it begin with the chieftan who alienated the Bedouin? The bride who seemed to foresee some of what was to occur? The moneychanger who manipulated the timing of the caravan?

What happens to the nine travelers on the route from Mecca to Median is both brutal and beautiful, full of small mercies and unforgiving truths. Each character is drawn with such grace, each story illuminating another facet of the whole. What, exactly, is written in the parchments in the saddlebag, however, remains a mystery. Much like life, and faith, itself. ( )

Set in the mid-19th century between Mecca and Medina, The Saddlebag looks at a pilgrim caravan beset by a sandstorm and a bandit raid through the eyes of nine different characters (of many different religions and nationalities), as a saddlebag, stolen from a pilgrim by the first character, passes through each of their lives and affects each of them profoundly. Nakhjavani, an Iranian author who was raised in Uganda and educated in the U.S. and the U.K. and now lives in France, is of the Baha'i Faith and was inspired by a passage in a Baha'i text in which the Bab (who is seen as the spiritual return of Elijah and John the Baptist) had his saddlebag containing his religious writing stolen while on pilgrimage. In her note on sources, Nakhjavani writes:

"This work is inspired by the language, the metaphors, the symbols and traditions of many holy books of different major religions of the world. It includes references from the Hindu scriptures of the Bhagavad Gita, sayings attributed to Buddha, quotations from Confucius' Analects, and The Book of Changes, echoes from the traditions associated with the Quran and from the Baha'i writings."

The Saddlebag is written in a lovely fable style, and each story opens up new understanding of the ones before it. In light of my previous read, I especially appreciated the eighth story, about the Dervish, who was actually a British spy in disguise, and took the saddlebag and many of the writings contained in it back to England, where it was broken up amongst a number of people who failed to understand the significance of the writings and mostly kept them for the beauty of the calligraphy. I enjoyed reading this book very much, but my understanding of the represented religions is very poor, and I know I missed a lot of significance.

Beautifully written and truly unique. ( )

A Rare form of fact-based fiction---nine characters' perspectives of a mysterious series of events interwoven to produce a gem-like story of spiritual loss and triumph. ( )