In this, first Nubian novel ever translated, Awad Shalali, a Nubian worker in modern Egypt, dreams of Dongola - capital of medieval Nubia, now lost to flood waters of Aswan High Dam. In Dongola, Nubians reached their zenith. They defeated and dominated Upper Egypt, and their archers, deadly accurate in battle, were renowned as the bowmen of glance. Halima, Awad's wife, must deal with reality of today's Nubia, a poverty-stricken bottomland. Men like Awad now work in Cairo for good wages while women remain at home in squalor, dominated by Islam of their conquerors and ignorant of glory now covered by Nile's water. Left to tend Awad's sick mother and his dying country, Halima grows despondent and learns truth behind Upper Egyptian lyric: Time, you are a traitor - what have you done with my love? Through his character's pain and suffering, Idris Ali paints in vibrant detail, with wit and a keen sense of history's absurdities, story of cultures and hearts divided, of lost lands - impossible dreams, and abandoned loves.