TAMANRASSET
Edward Parr
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GENRE: Historical Fiction
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BLURB:
TAMANRASSET is historical fiction set on the edge of the Sahara as the ancient world begins to fade and great empires collide. Four strangers—a mature Foreign Legionnaire, a Sharif’s wrathful son, an ambitious American archaeologist, and an abandoned Swedish widow—become adrift and isolated, but when their paths intersect, the fragile connections between them tell a story of survival and fate on the edge of the abyss. Blending the sweep of classic adventure with the horror of a great historical calamities, Edward Parr’s TAMANRASSET is a saga about the crossroads where nomads meet.
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Excerpt:
The Sun had not yet risen above the ruins of the Mechouar Palace, but at the mosque nearby many Muslim people of the city of Tlemcen were already at their morning prayer. It was a great privilege to be admitted to one of the oldest mosques in Algeria, over eight hundred years old, and an even greater privilege to be allowed to pray before the mihrab there among the great white columns that lined the enormous hall. As the prayers ended, there was a gentle rustling of movement as the faithful rose and exited to the open and airy marble-tiled courtyard of the mosque, still quiet in the twilight of dawn. Isabel retrieved her leather boots and exited a side door beneath the shadow of the towering brick minaret. Covered by her tightly drawn dark brown burnouse, khaki pants, white shirt, and a black hijab, Isabel walked along the great stone wall to the main gate of the palace. The few buildings in the complex that were still usable had been made into offices for the French army, but the pool and gardens of the central courtyard were peaceful and shadowy. She passed an alcove that featured Islamic calligraphy carved into the stucco, and Isabel stopped to read it: “Allah is God, there is no god but He: the King.”
A quiet voice behind her asked: “Madame Pedersen?”
She turned to find a short, elegantly dressed French officer approaching her. His flat-topped white hair was soldierly, but his crisp, tailored uniform, polished boots, and wide waxed mustache displayed a carefully composed appearance.
“Peace be with you,” she said, casting her eyes downward and crossing her arm over her chest as she nodded.
“Peace be with you, Madame. I apologize if I disturbed you; will you come inside?”
“As you wish.”
She followed the French colonel to a charming wood-paneled room overlooking an orchard of citrus trees bearing large green fruit. The colonel sat on a bare wood chair beside a wide wooden table, crossed his legs, and twirled the end of his wide mustache. Isabel stood silently before him in a respectful posture.
“I have the greatest respect for your beliefs, my dear, but it would be helpful to me if you would sit and speak to me informally. Would you be so kind?”
“Of course,” she said and she sat on the chair beside his. Her demeanor now expressed more of her experience and self-assurance, her hijab more a symbol of her confidence than of her humility. The colonel raised an eyebrow in appreciation of her serene face and brilliant blue eyes.
© 2025 by Edward Parr and Edwardian Press (New Orleans, Louisiana)
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Edward Parr’s Tamanrasset: Crossroads of the Nomad
Interview 9
If we were to come to your house for a meal, what would you give us to eat?
I love to cook and can make pretty much everything from a grilled steak to a Thomas Keller classic poached lobster. A great recipe for a crowd is the Spanish rice dish called paella. During COVID, I took an online class with Valencian chef Danny Lledó whose Michelin-star restaurant Xiquet is close to where I once lived in Washington, DC. I had made paella before, but that class taught me how great paella could be with the simplest skills and very simple ingredients. And I’d serve it with a nice wine, of course.
Say your publisher has offered to fly you anywhere in the world to do research on an upcoming book, where would you most likely want to go?
The problem with writing historical fiction is that you can’t travel in time, or at least not yet. When writing my new novel, Tamanrasset: Crossroads of the Nomad, I would have loved to travel to the Algiers of 1905 or the Casablanca of 1907, but I can only visit it now via photographs, memoirs, and old travel guides. I haven’t decide what to write next, but I do have a couple ideas. If I were to travel anywhere for research just now, the answer, believe it or not, would probably be Baltimore!
Do you listen to music while writing? If so what?
What is something you'd like to accomplish in your writing career next year?
It took me a long time to go from my first project to my second, and I learned a lot by putting the first behind me and trying to figure out what worked and what didn’t in terms of my process. Now I’m jazzed up to do it again, and I’m hoping I can at least get a book started in the next year. I have a couple ideas in mind, and as usual I’m trying to figure out why they’re interesting to me as I research them.
How long did it take you to write this book?
In terms of writing, I could say it took me about a year to outline, write, edit and proof my new novel Tamanrasset: Crossroads of the Nomad. But in reality it took me several years to prepare for that. Not only did I need to do a lot of research on the time period and place (early 20th century in and around the Sahara), but I had some special concerns. First, I wanted to draw on the traditions of the old French Foreign Legion adventure stories, so I needed to read a lot of them and come to understand what made them special. Second, I knew some of the main characters would be Muslim and Arab, and I did not feel I could write those characters without knowing enough about Muslim culture and the practice of Islam to present them respectfully. Third, I needed time to figure out what small part of the enormous history of the Maghreb, as that region of northern Africa is known, would be in the book. It’s safe to say that it just took me a long time to feel like I was ready to write the novel, but when I started it all just came pretty easily.
AUTHOR Bio and Links:
Edward (“Ted”) Parr studied playwriting at New York University in the 1980’s, worked with artists Robert Wilson, Anne Bogart, and the Bread and Puppet Theater, and staged his own plays Off-Off-Broadway, including Trask, Mythographia, Jason and Medea, Rising and an original translation of Oedipus Rex before pursuing a lengthy career in the law and public service. He published his Kingdoms Fall trilogy of World War One espionage adventure novels which were collectively awarded Best First Novel and Best Historical Fiction Novel by Literary Classics in 2016. He has always had a strong interest in expanding narrative forms, and in his novel writing, he explores older genres of fiction (like the pulp fiction French Foreign Legion adventures or early espionage fiction) as inspiration to examine historical periods of transformation. His main writing inspirations are Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Bernard Cornwell, Georges Surdez, and Patrick O’Brien.
Socials:
Website: https://edwardparrbooks.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/edward-parr-5808b15/
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7369165.Edward_Parr
Amazon Author: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Edward-Parr/author/B00GACO3NC?ccs_id=a023fe74-dd9a-429f-b56a-5cfe148dafc5
Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/user/DryCar9119AB/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/edwardparrbooks/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61576965808471
Amazon: https://a.co/d/44XsoJU
Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/tamanrasset-edward-parr/1148255148
Giveaway: https://kingsumo.com/g/3q5vpg3/tamanrasset
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