Al Babul — Robert Duncan

Twelve men come out of the West, hoping to change a little corner of the East. Their mission: to build a progressive international university on the edge of the desert. But it isn't long before the goalposts start to shift, and when a thirteenth man muscles his oar in, the desert comes back to haunt them where it hurts. Al Babul is a cacophony: a blackly comic satire, on Utopian hubris and academic cant.