The Puppet is an English translation from Arabic by William Maynard Hutchins of a tragic novel--about the rise and fall of political power in an oasis in Libya--by the award-winning Arabic-language author Ibrahim al-Koni, a native of Libya and a citizen of Switzerland, who is also a Tuareg and draws heavily on Tuareg mythology in his novels. The hero discovers to his dismay that the people he most despises are responsible for his rise to power.