This novel tells of an English schoolteacher who is stranded in the bizarre world of the Middle East and his peculiar fascination by the oryx. To the Arabs, this rare and beautiful animal is a prized symbol of manhood, and, in his dramatic quest, he comes to identify his own future with its fate.

Around this story, Canaway has created a brilliant, original and often highly amusing story which moves against a variety of powerfully suggested backgrounds; the brittle world of the oil company settlement; the tough and dangerous world of the drillers on the oil rigs, and the vast and empty desert where men are ruled by a code as harsh as the country itself.

Books by W H Canaway