Sulayman Al-Bassam Livres

A desert. A border. A remote petrol station within earshot of civil war. This vividly imagined twilight zone provides the background for a familial standoff in which the crimes, secrets, and broken loves of one generation make violent claims on the lives of the next as two half-brothers vie for favours and allegiance from their ageing father.

Presents a re-working of Shakespeare's Hamlet set in the Middle East. The setting of this version of the Hamlet story is a modern Middle-Eastern state whose old king has just died, to be replaced by his brother, a ruthless, westernised dictator who has married the old king's wife to legitimise his rule, and calls his regime a new democracy.