47. "Miramar" by Nagib Mahfuz [English version]

Year of first publication: 1967
Genre: novel

Country: Egypt

Naguib Mahfouz (or Nagib Mahfuz, according to the transliteration), Nobel Prize for Literature 1988, is not only one of the greatest Arabic-language writers, but also one of the greatest African writers. In spite of this, at least in Italy he is little known and few people – better to say very few people - read him.
Miramar is set in the 1960s in Alexandria, Egypt: the novel starts from the point of view of ‘Amer Wagdi, a retired journalist, who arrives at a boarding house called Miramar, managed by one of his old acquaintances, Mariana. The boarding house was once a fashionable place where classy people used to meet. Mariana was beautiful and haughty too. The situation of the guesthouse and its owner reflects that of the ancient and once marvellous city of Alexandria, that has always been an inspiration for poets.
One day a girl called Zahra comes to the guesthouse in order to ask for shelter and work. She is the daughter of an old client and she’s very beautiful, despite the fact that she is a peasant without an education. What soon follows is an affectionate friendship between ‘Amer Wagdi and Zahra, who escaped from her village after her grandfather tried to marry her off to a much older man. In town Zahra receives several marriage proposals, from young men staying at the guesthouse and even from the newsagent. The rest of the novel is told by Zahra’s three “suitors”: Hosni ‘Allam, Mansur Bahi and Sarhan al-Buheiri. The three of them fall in love with the girl, with different nuances. The chauvinism of Egyptian society is perceived, but also the independence and the obstinacy of its women is evident.
The story that struck me as the most interesting is that of Sarhan al-Buheiri, who has a relationship with a girl named Safiyya, a “good for nothing”, but doesn’t want to marry her or anyone else. He falls in love with Zahra instantly and says that he really loves her, but he doesn’t consider her suitable for marriage, because she doesn’t have an education or a job that can prospect a rise in society. He thinks a lot about that and ends up offering her a traditional Islamic marriage, without witnesses. Sarhan claims that love and marriage are two separate things and as a matter of fact ends up marrying ‘Aliyya, the teacher Zahra had hired to have some education, in the hope of being accepted by Sarhan.
Miramar tells the same story four times, from four different points of view. But the most fascinating thing is that the whole story is a metaphor: Zahra represents modern Egypt, honest and hard-working but without an education. Zahra – and Egypt – are influenced by several forces: Europeans, nationalists, the rich upper-class and the Muslim Brotherhood, but in the end she demonstrates her independence and obstinacy. Miramar is also a detective novel, albeit rather unusual, because there is a mystery which is not solved until the end of the book.

About the author: Nagib Mahfuz (1911-2006) was born in Cairo into a middle class family. He graduated in philosophy from Cairo university and wrote more than 50 novels, many of which has been adapted for the silver screen. His first novels can de described as historical, but his interests became more sociologic, with a series of novels entitled like streets and buildings of Cairo and therefore called “Cairo trilogy”: Palace Walk, Palace of Desire and Sugar Street. Disillusioned by Nasser regime, he stopped writing for a few years and then came back with Chichat on the Nile (1966), which criticized the decadence of Egyptian society and was banned by Sadat. Children of Gebelawi (1959), one of his most famous books, was banned for alleged blasphemy for the allegorical portrayal of God and the monotheistic religions. Like many other Arab intellectuals, he has been on the death list of fundamentalists (he was also suspected of atheism, reason for which he was transferred from the Minister of Religion to that of Culture). Mahfouz, who firmly believed in freedom of opinion, defended Salman Rushdie, against whom ayatollah Khomeini had issued a fatwa, even though he didn’t agree with Rushdie on his view of Islam. Some of the old polemics against his book Children of Gibelawi resurfaced and he was put under protection, like Rushdie. This was not enough and he was stubbed, leaving him with a permanent lesion on his right hand. Unable to write for more than a few minutes per day, Mahfouz wrote less and less, until his death in 2006. He is one the greatest Arabic-language writers and the first among them to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

47. "Miramar" by Nagib Mahfuz

Anno di prima pubblicazione: 1967
Genere: romanzo
Paese: Egitto

In English: Miramar by Naguib Mahfouz (alternative spelling) [By the way, Mahfouz's Cairo Trilogy was given as one of Africa's 100 best books of the 20th century, in a list compiled at the Zimbabwe International Book Fair]

Nagib Mahfuz, Premio Nobel per la Letteratura 1988, è non solo uno dei più grandi scrittori di lingua araba, ma anche uno dei più grandi scrttori africani. Eppure, almeno in Italia, è poco conosciuto, lo leggono in pochi, anzi in pochissimi.
Questo Miramar è ambientato negli anni ’60 ad Alessandria d’Egitto: il romanzo inizia dal punto di vista di ‘Amer Wagdi, un giornalista in pensione, che arriva alla pensione Miramar, gestita da una sua vecchia conoscenza, Mariana. La pensione un tempo era un luogo elegante dove si riunivano le persone di gran classe. Anche Mariana era bellissima e maestosa. La situazione della pensione e della proprietaria rispecchia naturalmente quella dell’antichissima e un tempo bellissima città di Alessandria, che da sempre è ispirazione per i poeti.
Un giorno alla pensione arriva una ragazza, Zahra, a chiedere a Mariana rifugio e un lavoro. E’ la figlia di un vecchio cliente ed è bellissima, nonostante sia una contadina senza istruzione. Nasce subito un’amicizia affettuosa tra ‘Amer Wagdi e Zahra, che è scappata dal suo villaggio dopo che il nonno ha cercato di obbligarla a sposare un uomo molto più anziano di lei. In città Zahra riceve numerose proposte di matrimonio, dai giovani che soggiornano alla pensione e persino dal giornalaio. Il resto del romanzo è narrato dal punto di vista dai tre “pretendenti” di Zahra, Hosni ‘Allam, Mansur Bahi e Sarhan al-Buheiri. Tutti e tre si innamorano della ragazza, con sfumature diverse. Si percepisce il maschilismo della società egiziana, ma anche l’indipendenza e la caparbietà delle sue donne.
La storia che mi ha colpito di più è quella di Sarhan al-Buheiri, che ha una relazione con una ragazza, Safiyya, una “poco di buono”, ma non vuole sposare né lei né nessun altra. Si innamora all’istante di Zahra e dice di amarla veramente, ma non la considera adatta al matrimonio, perché non ha un’istruzione né un lavoro che gli permetta una minima ascesa sociale. Si fa molti scrupoli sulla faccenda e arriva al punto di volerla sposare con il matrimonio islamico originale, senza testimoni. Sarhan sostiene che l’amore è una cosa e il matrimonio un’altra, ed infatti finisce per sposare ‘Aliyya, la maestra che Zahra aveva chiamato per farsi dare un minimo di istruzione, con la vana speranza di essere accettata da Sarhan.
Miramar narra la stessa storia quattro volte, da quattro punti di vista differenti. Ma la cosa più affascinante è che tutta la storia è una metafora: Zahra rappresenta l’Egitto moderno, onesto e laborioso ma senza istruzione. Zahra – e l’Egitto – vengono influenzati da diverse forze: gli europei, i nazionalisti, la ricca alta borghesia e i Fratelli Musulmani, ma alla fine dimostra la sua indipendenza e caparbietà. Miramar è anche un romanzo giallo, sebbene alquanto inusuale, perché c’è un mistero che non verrà risolto fino più o meno alla fine del libro.

Sull’autore: Nagib Mahfuz (1911 – 2006), nato in una famiglia piccolo-borghese al Cairo, si è laureato in filosofia all’Università del Cairo e scrisse più di cinquanta romanzi, molti dei quali sono stati adattati per il cinema. I suoi primi romanzi possono essere definiti storici, ma poi i suoi interessi divennero piuttosto sociologici, con una serie di romanzi intitolati come vie e palazzi del Cairo e perciò denominati "trilogia del Cairo": Tra i Due Palazzi, Il Palazzo del Desiderio, La Via dello Zucchero. Disilluso dal regime di Nasser, smise di scrivere per qualche anno e poi riprese con Chiacchiere sul Nilo (1966), critico verso la decadenza della società egiziana e proibito da Sadat. Il Rione dei Ragazzi (1959), uno dei suoi libri più famosi, fu proibito per presunta blasfemia nell’allegorico ritratto di Dio e delle religioni monoteistiche. Come molti altri intellettuali arabi, è stato nella lista nera dei fondamentalisti (fu, tra l’altro, sospettato di ateismo, motivo per il quale fu trasferito dal Ministero della Religione a quello della Cultura). Mahfuz, che credeva fermamente nella libertà d’opinione, difese Salman Rushdie contro il quale l’ayatollah Khomeini aveva dichiarato una fatwa, seppur non condividendo le posizioni sull’Islam dello scrittore anglo-indiano. La cosa fece riaffiorare delle vecchie polemiche riguardo al suo romanzo Il Rione dei Ragazzi e Mahfuz fu messo sotto scorta, come Rushdie. Questo non bastò e Mahfuz venne comunque aggredito e pugnalato, provocandogli una lesione permanente alla mano destra. Incapace di scrivere per più di qualche minuto al giorno, Mahfuz scrisse sempre di meno, fino alla morte avvenuta nel 2006. Mahfuz rimane uno dei grandi scrittori in lingua araba e il primo fra questi ad aver vinto il Premio Nobel per la Letteratura.

29. "A Map of Home" by Randa Jarrar

In italiano: La Collezionista di Storie di Randa Jarrar, edito da Piemme (2009), € 17,50
Leggi la mia recensione in italiano nella rivista on-line Paper Street (qui link)

Year of first publication: 2008
Genre: novel, bildungsroman
Country: USA / Egypt / Palestine / Kuwait

About the author: Randa Jarra was born in 1978 in Chicago from a Palestinian father and a Greek-Egyptian mother. Randa and her family moved to Kuwait when she was only two months old and in 1990, after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, they escaped to Egypt and then to the USA. She got a degree in Middle Eastern Studies from an American university and she is a translator from Arabic, but also a blogger and a short-story writer. She lives in Michigan with her partner and son. Her website is http://www.randajarrar.com/ .

The review of this book has been published in Italian on the on-line review Paper Street (link).

However, I'd like to add a part of an interview with Randa Jarrar appeared on Zocalo Public Square (link). The main character of the novel is called Nidali. Here's what the author says about her:

"Nidali is very bossy, loud, profane, funny, and she’s obsessed with her family’s history and her identity, and with how her new, sort of post-postcolonial self fits into the larger world she inhabits. She spends a lot of the novel trying to figure out who she is and where she belongs in the grand scheme, not just with her family, but with her international self, and who she want to be as opposed to who she is expected to be. Her family is full of failed artists, her dad is a failed poet and her mom is a failed concert pianist, and their main identity is rooted in their failure as artists. Their secondary identity is given to them by their own families, their places of origin—her mom’s as an Egyptian, and her father’s as a Palestinian. Nidali comes out of that, being a sort of mixed child in a somewhat homogenous culture. Even though they’re Arabs, her parents are from two different countries and it’s still seen as somewhat bizarre and out of the norm. From the very beginning, she has this feeling of being out of place, or being strange, or being a mix of things. Throughout the novel, she explores this mix, and tries to figure out a way for herself to be whole in the face of all this mixing."

And here's what Jarrar says about literary expectations on Arab and Arab American writers:

"I think readers tend to like stories by Muslim and Arab American women that detail sort of women’s oppression. Instead of a rags-to-riches story, it’s more of a hijab-to-freedom story. It doesn’t occur, I think, to most Americans, or not just Americans but the general population, that a woman can wear a hijab and can be the mistress of her own household and her own life and all that. I think there is a preoccupation with that kind of story.
There is also I think an expectation that an Arab American writer is going to tell sort of whimsical, magical stories, that Arabian Nights, genie-in-a-bottle sort of stereotype that an Arab American is an adept storyteller. That is what people expect, fantastical stories about ridiculous stuff, just bullshit. I think the oppressed woman, the ornate magic story, and maybe a third strain would be the hyper-political novel, or if not hyper-political, the somewhat didactic novel, not even set in America, or set in America featuring new immigrants, and showing the politically charged aspect of being Arab American or Arab post-9/11. Readers expect these books to be testaments of on-the-edge fundamentalists, not quite someone who is a fundamentalist, but how they might become one, how they might be understood. I think those are the preferred stories that are expected. There are more, but those are a few that seem the most pronounced, the ones that I’ve seen."

Hey, English is not the only language in which fiction is written!

The International Prize for Arabic Fiction, a sort of Booker Prize of the Arab World, was awarded to Youssef Ziedan of Egypt for his controversial novel Azazeel (to be translated into English as "Beelzebub"). The novel speaks about religious fanaticism and mob violence among early Christians in Roman Egypt. Of course the Coptic Christians wanted it banned, but isn't it the case of too many fiction books on the Arab world? To take a stand on this is quite tricky I would say, since I gather that Copts (10 million in Egypt) are being discriminated in Egypt. I would like, instead, to emphasize the fact that Egyptian writers seem to be the most appreciated in the Arab world (or maybe by the western audiences?), starting from Ala Al-Aswani.

Here's the plot of Azazeel from an article taken from The Guardian:

"[Azazeel are] the memoirs of a fifth-century doctor-­monk and passionate lover named Hypa, whose scrolls are unearthed by a 20th-century translator. Born in AD 391, when Christianity was imposed as Roman Egypt's official religion, Hypa wanders east to the Holy Land after witnessing a mob of Alexandrian Christians lynching a woman, Hypatia, the neo-platonic philosopher and mathematician who defended science against religion. Ziedan sees the lynching as a symptom of religious intolerance, and the start of a scientific dark age.
The fictional monk stumbles on another historical conflict, between the Coptic Bishop Cyril of Alexandria, and Nestorius, the Syrian-born patriarch of Constantinople whom Cyril deposed as a heretic in a schism of AD 431."

Independent Foreign Fiction Prize: because literature is not only what is written in English, as most British - American people uncounsciously assume... It is nonetheless sad that what is awarded and thus considered in the English-speaking world is always what is indeed translated, which is a small part of the great literature that the world produces. I would like to hear more about English or American people who read fiction directly in French or Spanish.

Three considerations: 1) I'm happy for Colombian fiction that dominates with 2 books, demonstrating that it's not only Garcia Marquez that matters 2) A novel from such a minor language as Albanian has been translated and nominated and I'm happy because as an Italian I feel Albania particularly close 3) Two non-European languages (Chinese and Hebrew) appear on the list, which is extremely good.

Voiceover by Céline Curiol, translated by Sam Richard from the French
Beijing Coma by Ma Jian, translated by Flora Drew from the Chinese
The Siege by Ismail Kadaré, translated by David Bellos from the Albanian
The Armies by Evelio Rosero, translated by Anne McLean from the Spanish
The Informers by Juan Gabriel Vasquez, translated by Anne McLean from the Spanish
Friendly Fire by A B Yehoshua, translated by Stuart Schoffman from the Hebrew

PS: I've been receiving comments like "Hey, is The Siege any good?". I'd like to inform you that I didn't read all the novels I name in my blog, especially when I'm giving news on the literary prizes!

"Girls of Riyadh" di Rajaa Alsanea

Anno di prima pubblicazione: 2005
Genere: romanzo
Paese: Arabia Saudita

In italiano: Ragazze di Riad di Rajaa Alsanea, edito da Mondadori Oscar Grandi Bestseller (2009), € 12
Oppure, sempre edito da Mondadori, nella collana Omnibus (2007) € 18.

Sull’autrice: Rajaa Alsanea è nata nel 1981 in Arabia Saudita, da una famiglia di dottori. Ha studiato odontoiatria a Chicago. Girls of Riyadh è il suo primo romanzo, pubblicato in arabo nel 2005 con il titolo Banat al-Riyadh e subito proibito in Arabia Saudita, a causa del suo contenuto controverso. Nel 2007 il libro è stato tradotto in inglese, con alcuni piccoli cambiamenti dovuti all’impossibilità di mantenere la diversificazione dei diversi dialetti arabi nella traduzione.

Trama: Quattro giovani studentesse universitarie, di famiglie ricche e privilegiate, alla ricerca del vero amore. La città in cui vivono, però, è Riad, capitale dell'Arabia Saudita, e la società nella quale si muovono impone loro un numero infinito di regole e comportamenti, spesso dettati dalla famiglia o dalla comunità che non tengono in considerazione i loro desideri. Attraverso resoconti di un'anonima narratrice, che invia i propri scritti via internet, l'unico mezzo di comunicazione privata possibile, prendono forma le storie di Qamra, in continua lotta contro le tradizioni familiari e contro la propria debolezza; di Michelle, per metà araba e per metà americana, incapace di sopportare le restrizioni della società saudita e per questo vitti
ma della maldicenza; di Sadim, ferita da un amore che la condizionerà per la vita; e di Lamis, forte e determinata a conquistare sia l'uomo di cui si è innamorata sia la libertà in un altro paese.

Alcuni pensieri: Questo romanzo è interessantissimo, perché dà un’idea di che cosa vuol dire essere una ragazza saudita. Bilanciare le restrizioni imposte alle donne in Arabia Saudita con la coscienza di essere in realtà donne moderne e “potenzialmente emancipate” non dev’essere facile. Le ragazze saudite indossano abiti alla moda e molto sexy in casa, ma quando escono sono obbligate a portare abaya e niqab, cioè si coprono dalla testa ai piedi, lasciando scoperti solo gli occhi (e delle volte neanche quelli). Non possono bere alcol, ma di nascosto queste figlie della classe dirigente saudita, come i loro familiari, si scolano bottiglie intere di champagne. Le donne in Arabia Saudita non hanno il diritto di voto, non possono guidare l’auto né fare sport. Non solo uffici, ristoranti, autobus, scuole ed università sono segregati, ma le donne non possono uscire di casa senza un uomo della famiglia o il marito. Si tratta di una vera e propria “apartheid sessuale”. Il libro tratta anche di questo, ma il focus è più sulla ricerca dell’amore da parte di queste ragazze. Ma come possono trovare l’amore in una società che impedisce tutti i rapporti umani tra uomo e donna prima del matrimonio? Quando mettono piede fuori dal loro paese, queste ragazze cambiano radicalmente: l’abaya viene tolta già nella cabina dell’aereo e non si risparmiano di frequentare uomini nei café o nei ristoranti londinesi o newyorkesi. Quando tornano a Riyadh, però, rimettono diligentemente la loro abaya e ricominciano a vivere la loro vita segregata. Nonostante l’autrice all’inizio del romanzo inserisca una citazione (dal Corano naturalmente) che dica che il cambiamento può avvenire soltanto se c’è un cambiamento dentro noi stessi, come si può applicare al libro? Il problema non sembrano essere le donne, intelligenti, colte e probabilmente pronte al cambiamento, ma gli uomini sauditi, egoisti e detentori del potere decisionale ed economico, che sono abituati a trattare le donne come comodità. E’ facile avere delle mogli che non chiedono di sacrificare la famiglia per la carriera, non possono praticamente uscire di casa e non possono chiedere il divorzio. Perché gli uomini sauditi dovrebbero cambiare? Ad ogni modo, il libro è un po’ più ottimista di me e alcune delle ragazze alla fine trovano l’amore, o almeno così sembra. Non che trovino l'emancipazione nel loro paese, sia chiaro.

Rajaa Alsanea non vincerà di certo il Premio Nobel (lo stile è ancora un po' ingenuo, anche se il libro è scorrevole ed avvincente) ma l'argomento trattato è estremamente interessante e originale. Non capita molto spesso di leggere questi resoconti scritti di pugno da una ragazza che ha vissuto queste cose! Tuttavia, mi sarebbe piaciuto un po' più di enfasi sulla questione dei diritti umani per le donne in Arabia Saudita, anziché sulla ricerca dell'amore vero, ossessione che delle volte sembra quasi far diventare il romanzo una specie di telenovela alla saudita.

STARS: 3/5

Mahmoud Darwish (1942 - 2008)

As I promised, I’m writing something about a few important authors who passed away in 2008. The first one is Mahmoud Darwish, a poet who was considered Palestinian national one. I choose to speak about him before any other writer on my list because of the recent events in Gaza. I do not want to discuss international politics with this post, but just remember the suffering of the Palestinian people.

Mahmoud Darwish was born in a village called al-Birwa, in the Western Galilee. Hi mother was illiterate, but his grandfather taught him to read. After the establishment of the state of Israel, he fled to Lebanon with his family, and then settled in Deir al-Asad, now a part of Israel, eventually moving to Haifa. He published his first book of poetry, Asafir bila ajniha, at the age of nineteen. He then studied in Moscow and moved to Egypt and Lebanon. He was allowed to settle in Ramallah in 1995, although he said he felt like being in exile there, because he did not consider the West Bank as his “private homeland”. He published over thirty books of poetry and eight of prose. In March 2000, Yossi Sarid, the Israeli education minister, proposed that two of Darwish's poems be included in the Israeli high school curriculum. Prime Minister Ehud Barak rejected the proposal on the grounds that Israel was "not ready."
He wrote, of course, in Arabic and central to his poetry is the concept of watan, “homeland”. He said about Hebrew poet Yehuda Amichai, a writer whom he greatly admired: “his poetry is a challenge to me, because we write about the same place. He wants to use the landscape and history for his own benefit, based on my destroyed identity. So we have a competition: who is the owner of the language of this land? Who loves it more? Who writes it better?”. His position towards Jewish people is disputed: he denied hating them, but admitted to have no reason to like them. Darwish believed that peace was attainable. "I do not despair," he told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. "I am patient and am waiting for a profound revolution in the consciousness of the Israelis. The Arabs are ready to accept a strong Israel with nuclear arms - all it has to do is open the gates of its fortress and make peace."

This is probably his most famous poem, Bitaqat huwiyya, “Identity Card”:

Identity Card

Record!
I am an Arab
And my identity card is number fifty thousand
I have eight children
And the nineth is coming after a summer
Will you be angry?

Record!
I am an Arab
Employed with fellow workers at a quarry
I have eight children
I get them bread
Garments and books
from the rocks..
I do not supplicate charity at your doors
Nor do I belittle myself at the footsteps of your chamber
So will you be angry?

Record!
I am an Arab
I have a name without a title
Patient in a country
Where people are enraged
My roots
Were entrenched before the birth of time
And before the opening of the eras
Before the pines, and the olive trees
And before the grass grew

My father.. descends from the family of the plow
Not from a privileged class
And my grandfather..was a farmer
Neither well-bred, nor well-born!
Teaches me the pride of the sun
Before teaching me how to read
And my house is like a watchman's hut
Made of branches and cane
Are you satisfied with my status?
I have a name without a title!

Record!
I am an Arab
You have stolen the orchards of my ancestors
And the land which I cultivated
Along with my children
And you left nothing for us
Except for these rocks..
So will the State take them
As it has been said?!

Therefore!
Record on the top of the first page:
I do not hate poeple
Nor do I encroach
But if I become hungry
The usurper's flesh will be my food
Beware..
Beware..
Of my hunger And my anger!

Qui la poesia in italiano, insieme ad altre che puoi leggere per farti un’idea di questo poeta.

"Chicago" by 'Ala Al-Aswani

Year of publication: 2007
Genre: novel
Setting and Time: Chicago and Egypt, present time
Themes: religion, immigration, international politics, multiculturalism, mixed marriages, civil rights

Warning: Mixing English and Italian is dangerous!

About the author: ‘Ala Al-Aswani was born in Egypt in 1957 and he is a member of a political movement called Kefaya (The Egyptian Movement for Change, which opposes president Mubarak and his policies). He trained as a dentist in Egypt and Chicago. His first novel, translated from Arabic as The Yacoubian Building (2002) was widely read in Egypt and the Middle East. It is an ironic depiction of modern Egyptian society at about the time of the first Gulf War (1990). His second novel, Chicago (2007) is set in the city in which the author has studied and is again a portrait of Egyptian society.

Plot

: In una Chicago mitica e solforosa troviamo una piccola comunità di egiziani in esilio, forgiata sul modello del dipartimento dell’Università di Chicago che l’autore ha conosciuto bene negli anni della formazione americana. In questo mondo claustrofobico e formicolante di vite, ‘Ala al-Aswani intreccia storie di esistenze che si cercano e si perdono. Sono esistenze strappate alla loro terra d’origine che vivono in un universo strano e straniero: la tentazione di conformarsi all’American way of life non è abbastanza. L’Egitto è lì, nel cuore di un’America traumatizzata dagli attentati terroristici dell’11 settembre. Quando viene annunciata la visita ufficiale del presidente egiziano a Chicago, si mette in moto il sistema di sicurezza dell’ambasciata, orchestrato dal temibile Safuat Shaker, che controlla e sorveglia tutti gli egiziani residenti in America.

Some thoughts: Ehm, I thought that this book hadn’t been translated into English, but I was wrong. Actually I saw an autographed copy on the bookshelves of a book shop in Piccadilly. I had started the review in Italian, so I’ll do a (dangerous) mix.
Mi è piaciuto parecchio questo libro: è un ritratto della società egiziana attraverso la comunità egiziana di una facoltà universitaria americana. C’è tutta una carrellata di personaggi contraddittori: dalla ragazza di campagna molto religiosa che finisce per rimanere incinta al di fuori del matrimonio, fino allo studente politicamente impegnato che però va a studiare nel paese che tanto odia, l’America. Sono contraddizioni che possono nascere quando cambia vita radicalmente, quando si lascia il proprio paese, islamico, povero e privo di libertà individuali, per andare in un paese che, teoricamente, dovrebbe essere laico, ricco e libero. Ma non tutte le cose vanno come ci si aspetta e quindi anche l’America si rivela un posto dove alcune libertà possono venire negate e dove c’è un’aura di odio latente per tutto ciò che viene percepito come diverso.
L’autore s’interessa in particolare della situazione politica egiziana: alcuni personaggi sono attivisti politici e la matrice autobiografica è abbastanza palese.
William Skidelsky of The Guardian reflects on the questions that may rise while you are reading this novel. For example, to what extent is the immigrant obliged to remain loyal to his or her old country? In a country like the US, where the immigrants were used to leave their previous lives behind, Muslims feel different, because their religion would ask them a lot more commitment. I didn’t like Al-Aswani’s pessimism: the book suggests that there is no real possibility of successfully transcending the cultural divide. Skidelsky is also very critic of the author’s depiction of America (read the article here), but I can’t tell, seen that I’ve never been there. In particular he thinks that Al-Aswani looses credibility with the story of professor Graham and Carol, a mixed couple that has to face the prejudice of people and employers. Angela Schader, of Neuer Zurcher Zeitung asks herself how could a work so ‘contemptuous of morality and patriotism’ escape Egyptian censorship authorities, considering that the book also exposes the discrimination against the Copts and an analysis of the advantages of the vibrator. Read her article here. I will soon post an article appeared on La Stampa on the matter of 'rebel Islam'.