Friday 28 January 2011

Book 44, Country 50 - Iran

The Septembers of Shiraz by Dalia Sofer - first published 2007

Set in the early 1980s shortly after the Iranian Revolution.  Jewish gem dealer Isaac Amin is arrested and wrongly accused of being an Israeli spy, although his family have lived and worked in Iran for several generations.  He is imprisoned for many months and endures torture and solitary confinement.  Many of his fellow prisoners are executed.  The book is about how he copes in prison and how his wife Farnaz and daughter Shirin in Tehran do their best to help him and how his son  Parviz, who has already been sent to study in New York, makes a life for himself there without his family.  Not a cheerful book but there is a happy ending for the family.  I would also recommend the excellent graphic novel Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, which has several parallels with this story for people wanting to read another book about the consequences of the Islamic Revolution for ordinary Iranians.  7/10

26th January 2011

Monday 24 January 2011

Book 43, Country 49 - Iraq

Kiss the Dust by Elizabeth Laird - first published 1991

This novel was written for teenagers and is seen through the eyes of 13 year old Tara, whose family are Kurds.  It is 1984 and Tara is living with her parents, younger sister and older brother in a spacious modern house in Sulaimaniya, Iraq.  Then one day the secret police come to their house to arrest her father because they think he is involved with the pesh murgas (Kurish freedom fighters).  The family flee initially to their ancestral village where they live for a few months in a one room house.  However all the villages in the area are bombed by Iraqi planes and Tara and her family flee by night on horseback over the Zagros Mountains into Iran.  At this time Iran is at war with Iraq and they are treated with suspicion and kept locked up in refugee camps where the conditions are very unsanitary and basic.  After a few months they fly to England where they claim political asylum.  This book brings to life very vividly the plight of the Kurdish people in Iraq under Saddam Hussein's rule.  8/10

20th January 2010

Wednesday 19 January 2011

Book 42, Country 48 - Jordan

My Name is Salma by Fadia Faqir


Nowhere in this book does it say that it is set in Jordan – the country is referred to as the Levant, which could be anywhere in the Eastern Mediterranean.  The reason for this could be because of the subject matter – ‘honour’ killings.  However the author is Jordanian by birth and the country is definitely not Lebanon but is a country to the SE of Lebanon. 

Teenage Salma lives in a remote village.  She is seduced by Hamdan, who disowns her when he finds out she is pregnant.  Salma is taken into prison for her own protection, as her older brother has vowed to kill her.  She gives birth to a daughter, who is taken away immediately.  8 years later she is released from prison into the care of some Lebanese nuns.  However she has to flee from Lebanon when her brother learns she has been released from prison.  She flees to England with a nun and lives initially with a Quaker in Branscombe in Devon.  After a year she moves first to a hostel in Exeter and then to lodge with an alcoholic landlady.  She makes a few friends and gets a job in a tailoring company.  9 years later, despite having married an English lecturer and given birth to a son, she decides to return to Jordan to find her daughter.  Don’t expect a happy ending because there isn’t one.  Exeter is one of my favourite cities but Salma doesn’t like or its residents much and spends most of her time feeling sorry for herself.  I felt she could have been more grateful to the Lebanese nuns and the Quaker who rescued her and cared for her out of the kindness of their hearts.  6/10

16th January 2011

Friday 14 January 2011

Book 41, Country 47 - Syria

The Lives of Shadows: An Illustrated Novel by Barbara Hodgson - first published in 2004

Books set in Syria proved very hard to find and when this one arrived and I saw it had been circulated round 4 libraries but had only been issued 5 times in 6 years I wasn't very optimistic.  However I was pleasantly surprised.  The book has the appearance of a personal journal and that is the story really.  Julian Beaufort visits Damascus in Syria while on a tour of the Middle East in 1914.  He falls in love with a house called Bait Katib and the owners sell it to him.  He agrees to buy it and says he is happy for them to remain living in the house.  However he has to return to England to raise the funds to buy it and then the First World War breaks out and he is forced to enlist in the army.  In 1917 he is badly injured and it takes him until 1925 to recover sufficiently to return to Damascus by which time the previous owner and his wife have died.  He arrives during the French shelling of the city to quell a revolt by the Druze.   Bait Katib survives the bombing but no one knows what has happened to Asilah, the daughter of the previous owners.  However it turns out she was shot dead during the revolt and that her ghost is living in the house.  Fast forward to 1945 and a distant relative of Asilah is trying  to gain possession of the house.  Asilah writes entries in Julian's journal to support his claim to the house.  These are included in the book but they are all in Arabic!  There are also lots of plans, cuttings from newspapers and photos but these are all in French or not labelled at all, so although they add to the book visually, they do not add to the story.  I thought the story was as listed above until the very last page, which throws the whole story into doubt!    6/10

12th January 2011

Tuesday 11 January 2011

Book 40, Country 46 - Lebanon

Dreams of Water by Nada Awar Jarrar - first published in 2007

Set in Beirut and London and spanning the period of the Lebanese Civil War (1975-90) to the present day.  After Aneesha's brother Bassam is taken from his home by rebels and never seen again, she moves to London to start a new life.  She becomes friends with Salah, who is also Lebanese and was persuaded to move to London by his son Samir after the death of his wife.  After a few years in London and the end of the Civil War, Aneesha decides to return to Beirut to support her mother who volunteers at an orphanage and has become convinced that a boy called Ramzi, who was born on the same day Bassam disappeared, is actually Bassam reincarnated.  Salah dies in London and Samir returns to Beirut to sort out his parents flat.  He falls in love with Aneesha but just as everything in the story is coming together, it all falls apart.  The book is a very smooth and easy read even though it constantly jumps backwards and forwards in time and place without letting the reader know when and where they are.  It gives a flavour of life in Beirut but it is like looking at the city through a fine mist, as there aren't many details.  It would have been good to have had a glossary of Lebanese terms for food, musical instruments, areas of Beirut and terms of endearment.  6/10

10th January 2011

Wednesday 5 January 2011

Book 39, Country 45 - Israel

The Attack by Yasmina Khadra – translated from French and first published in English in 2006

Dr Amin Jaafie, an Arab Israeli doctor is told that his wife Sihem had ended her life by blowing herself up in a crowded Tel Aviv restaurant, killing 19 other people as well.  At first he cannot believe that she would have done such a thing but then he receives a letter from her and realises it is true.  He travels to Bethlehem and Jenin to find out why and how she came to become a suicide bomber.  It is a surprisingly compelling read and I could see a film of it playing in my mind’s eye.  Don’t expect a happy ending because there isn’t one.  In fact the beginning of the story is also the end.    Yasmina Khadra is the pseudonym of an ex-Algerian army officer.  I have also read his Swallows of Kabul, which is equally harrowing but well worth reading.  7/10

2nd January 2011

Out of Africa

At last I have finished Africa and just in time to start a new continent for the New Year.  I’m almost halfway through my reading journey and my enthusiasm hasn’t waned.    However I am glad to have finished my travels through Africa, which, with a few exceptions, wasn’t a happy place – genocide, AIDS, female circumcision, civil war, landmines, corruption, slavery and poverty were the main themes covered.  I’ve never wanted to travel to Africa but the 20 books I have read have given me a new insight into life there both now and in the past.  On to the Middle East next but I don’t expect that to be a happy place either!

Book 38, Country 44 - Egypt

The Yacoubian Building by Alaa Al Aswany - translated from Arabic and first published in English in 2004

There is no plot as such to this novel.  It is about a selection of people who live in the Yacoubian Building in Cairo in around 1990.  The rich ones live and work in the apartments in the building while the poor live in tiny rooms on the roof and their lives partly intertwine.  It isn't a jolly book - several of the characters die and most of them aren't very nice people.  The book tackles the subjects of religious fanaticism, homosexuality and the sexual exploitation of women and describes the realities of life in modern Cairo very well.  6/10

30th December 2010