OBOC - Egypt

Alaa Al-Aswany was a guest on World Book Club and I remember making a mental note that the Yacoubian Building will be my pick for Egypt and it was. It has to be one of the most popular books from the Arab world and what amazes me is how the book is still published in Egypt. Let me explain - my impression of Egypt is that it is a very conservative country, ruled by an autocracy with not much freedom of expression or a completely independent press and the only outlet for all the underlying suppressed passion/ tension was the football field.

And then here is a book (from an author who is not new to dissent and courage) which doesn't portray a favorable picture of Egypt and also talks in no uncertain terms about many of the taboos in Egyptian society - corruption in political life, homosexuality, police brutality, emergence of extremist Islam and Jihadists, poverty, economic stagnation, brain drain, disenchantment. Maybe my perception of the Egyptian autocracy is misguided, after all the book is still published and widely read in Egypt and everywhere in the Arab world!

The Yacoubian Building which is at the heart of the novel is an actual building that is located in downtown Cairo which the author has fictionalized for his story. We trace the changing face of Egypt over the years through the changing face of the building and its occupants. What was once a luxury accommodation for foreigners and the upper echelons of Egyptian society, after the 1952 revolution transformed into a housing for the military families who typically came from rural areas of Egypt. As the wealthy and educated elite started to leave Egypt following the revolution and the failed promises, the roof of the Yacoubian building which housed 2m X 2m storage rooms became homes of the urban poor who were often migrant workers eking out a living in the city. The roof dwellers form what is equivalent to a slum community in many cities around the developing world

Besides the building itself there are a number of characters whose lives are intertwined with each other and the building and through them we get a glimpse of Egyptian society - Corrupt politicians (Hagg Azzam), disenchanted youths who fall prey to militant Islam (Taha), young women who find that performing sexual favors for their bosses is the only way to hold onto a job (Busayana), fairly open homosexual elites (Hatim) and former members of the ruling class who look back with some fondness on French culture and pre-revolution days (Zaki Bey), migrant workers, small businessmen, hustlers and so on. With so many characters he has still succeeded in adding layers and depth to many of them

The book is definitely a criticism of the one party system that exists in Egypt and also shows the disenchantment of the population with the unfulfilled promises of the revolution. Its treatment of homosexuality is considered ground breaking in Arab culture. Mostly very bleak, the book ends on a hopeful note with the unlikely union of Busayana and Zaki Bey despite their age and rank differences- symbolizing the union of old Egypt with the new one perhaps? Or am I just reading into it too much for allegories? Although I found some sections of the book to be a bit dragging, it was completely worth the effort and I can see why it gets the praise it gets

OBOC - Eritrea

When I hear news about celebrities from Madonna to Angelina adopting children from impoverished African countries I always try to imagine what must be going through the child’s mind – would the child think he/she is lucky for escaping from poverty or will he/she long to trace back his biological parents and through them his/her cultural heritage. Hannah Pool answers some of these questions in her book “My Father’s Daughter”. Although her white adoptive parents were no movie stars, they did adopt this “orphaned” child from Eritrea and gave her a new life in Britain.

Despite being a successful journalist/writer for the Guardian with a loving adopted family and a well adjusted life in the UK with all its imperfections, Hannah never stopped wondering about her biological mom who died following child birth.  Thousand questions flooded her brain when one of her brothers contacted her through a letter which led to a meeting with a cousin in the UK after which she decided to take the plunge and visit her family, including her father who was still very much alive and not dead as presumed in Eritrea.

Overwhelmed by the discovery of numerous "cousins" and aunts and uncles and the agonizing preparation (should i wear long skirts, how long, kind of head cover etc) she lands in Asmara and is greeted by an entourage of emotional Eritreans all claiming some relationship to her. Relying on two of her brothers (a statistician and a teacher) for translation she has a hard time navigating through her family and finds that the British stiff upper lip comes innately to her rescue. The meeting with her older sister with whom she strikes up a warm relationship despite the language barrier leaves her wanting for more. Initially she finds it condescending that her brothers "took care of her" but slowly she lets go of that feeling and starts to bask in its warmth. Although she gets along with her father, there is the nagging question in her mind about why she was given up for adoption and that acts as a barrier in her relationship. 

When it is time for her father and her sister to get back to their native villages, she decides to follow them much against the advice of everyone. It is the trip to Keren, her father's and sister's villages and her own birth place that is the most poignant and well written portion of the book. She encounters for the first time the poverty of Eritrea which she has read so much about, but didn't really "see" in Asmara the capital. She compares and contrasts her own life with that of her two relatively middle class brothers and that of her sister. Did they think she was lucky to be adopted by a white couple? Would she trade her life of luxury for the sense of belonging to a family? Sitting on the bed that she was born in and seeing for the first time truly the hard life that members of her family face day to day she finally understands her father's motives behind giving her up for adoption. The few days she spends in the villages of Eritrea became instrumental in her own internal journey which gave her a sense of belonging that she so longed for all her life.

In the end the book stands out for two reasons

1) She successfully captures in some beautiful passages the complex world that is Eritrea - the wedding ceremonies, the patriarchial customs, the food (injera bread and shoru and the coffee), rural Vs urban life, role of expats, returnees, the UN's presence, the war with Ethiopia, struggles of the youth etc

2) Going from being an orphan to a member of a large family, her effort to reconcile her Africanness in Britain and her Britishness in Africa is one of the most honest pieces of writing that I've seen. A secular, liberal career minded woman, with a middle class accent and appropriate Britishness still stands out in her adopted country because of her skin color and her African origins (which she tried hard to distance herself from). She now finds herself in a religious, conservative, traditional, patriarchal society and manages to stand out despite her pigmentation. How does she deal with that and all the baggage of guilt and anger that she has carried with her all her life is the crux of the book.

The book is an emotional roller coaster and although sometimes she spells out her vacillating thoughts, panic and doubts in excruciating details overall it is an amazing read.

OBOC - El Salvador

If many of the books from Africa that I’ve read so far portray the Clergy in a not so favorable light, then pause for a moment, before you paint all Clergy with one broad brush. (After all “the danger of a single story” is the inspiration behind this blog). While many people know about Pope John Paul’s role in supporting Solidarity in Poland, not many are aware of the role played by the Church in Central and Latin America in standing up to the dictators.   

One of the most famous martyrs from El Salvador was the Archbishop Oscar Romero who was assassinated by the Military Dictatorship. Just recently, 30 years after the tragic event, the President of El Salvador Mauricio Funes publicly apologized on behalf of the State for this assassination. These events in history were brought to my attention thanks to Democracy Now and as I read more about Oscar Romero, I was struck by the contradiction here – “Godless” Leftist Guerillas supported by the Clergy opposing a military dictatorship supported by none other than Jimmy Carter’s (whose religious views are widely known) Government and all the others that followed. One of the longest civil wars in LatAm that led to 75,000 deaths finally ended in 1990.

One Day of Life by Manlio Argueta is a novel that follows the life of one woman – Guadalupe “Lupe” Guardado – as she tries to get through one day. Set just before the break out of the Civil war, Argueta depicts life under the government’s paramilitary organization as experienced by peasants struggling to get through their lives one day at a time. Not only was the book banned in El Salvador, but the author was also exiled for his political views. 

Lupe’s husband Jose is involved in organizing farmers in his village and is therefore forced to live in the hills and visit his family only during the nights, just like most of the other men. Her son Justino joined the ranks of the murdered and her son-in-law that of the “missing” as they had the nerve to protest against the economic conditions facing the peasants. Her grand daughter Adolfina at 14 had personally experienced these inequities and at that tender age taken part in protests and witnessed massacres of students in a bus. At the end of the novel Jose is apprehended and severely beaten by the authorities beyond recognition. Lupe and Adolfina are summoned to identify the beaten man as he had uttered the name “Adolfina” before losing consciousness. Although Adolfina fails to recognize her grandfather, Lupe does, but in a remarkable show of emotional restraint claims to not know the dead man, just as she had promised Jose who had foreseen this tragic end.

While the story is mostly narrated by Lupe as she gets through her day, there are periods of reminiscences which reveal much about the political climate. The transformation of the church from one that had turned a blind eye to the plight of the peasants to one that was instrumental in creating awareness of their rights (parallel to Oscar Romero's own transformation), the persecution of the clergy for their support of Unionization, the overall Red scare,  are all described by Lupe in plain simple direct words. The psyche of a soldier who has grown to hate his pigmentation (neither white nor Indian) and how his hate is channeled by the authorities who recruit and train these disillusioned youths to form death squads from within a community is made known to the readers in a monologue by one Private Martinez who is Lupe's neighbor. This is one of the best chapters in the book according to me, offering amazing psychological insights as to how self loathing turns into hatred for everyone else as Martinez compliments the British colonizers for doing away with Indians unlike the Spanish colonizers!

Lupe is an embodiment of patience and restraint and despite suffering insurmountable losses she maintains her poise. By not shedding any tears at the sight of her dead son and husband she in her own way resists the authorities. Her granddaughter Adolfina on the other hand at 14 has been actively protesting the authorities heralding perhaps the new wave of feminism.

Despite the review, I should concede here that reading the book was not easy and at certain points i felt that it was rambling and I could not wait for the day to end. It was only after I put the book down, and thought about it did i see the true merits of the book. One day of Lupe's life was enough to give me a mini-history lesson of El Salvador which makes it a perfect book for OBOC!

OBOC - Equatorial Guinea

“Shadows of your black memory” by Donato Ndongo is often described as a coming of age story.  An unnamed protagonist’s story is told in alternate chapters in first person and the unusual second person narrative (like a story telling Vs stream of consciousness technique - a style that I am becoming painstakingly familiar as I am struggling to read Joyce – will save that for another post).  Set in the waning period of Spanish Colonialism this is also the coming of age story of Equatorial Guinea as it moved towards Independence.

When the story begins we come to know that the protagonist who is now a young man has decided not to pursue priesthood but go to law school. The rest of the novel is the protagonist’s reflection of his childhood and formative years as he tried to navigate the tribal culture and religion on the one hand with the dominating isms of his life – Colonialism and Catholicism under the towering presence of two strong patriarchs – his father who has embraced the Colonial way of modernism and his uncle Tio Abeso still strongly entrenched in traditionalism rejecting the white man’s religion and his ways.  Inexplicably, the father despite embracing modernism doesn't sever ties with Tio Abeso and in fact lets him lead his son into traditional tribal rituals thereby amplifying the conflict. On the shoulder of this hero falls the burden of bridging the chasm between the two. 

The third important patriarchs in the novel are the catholic priests who appear to the young boy as the most powerful beings on the earth. He is constantly reminded of the greatness and the power of the white man’s God and therefore the white man himself who has invented countless things in the world, in contrast to the black man who has not invented anything.

Despite Tio Abeso’s determined attempts to preserve the tribal knowledge and culture, the boy understands that Father Oritz’s way of life was arriving to dominate Tio Abeso’s world. Witnessing the clash of these 2 big traditions in the verbal duel between Tio Abeso and Father Oritz he understands that he can never completely embrace or abandon one over the other but will always have a mixed identity….. “convinced that although you would one day cross the ocean and go beyond, you would always have the spirit of the tribe within you, the blood of the tribe, you would always hear the tribe whispering to you”

Almost all of the African novels that I’ve read have this element of a journey/ transition from the traditional to the “modern” world and this question of one’s identity and the conflict arising from this mixed identity is at the heart of these stories. Ndongo’s achievement is describing these conflicts and pangs so beautifully with an almost neutral tone. As Africa itself struggles to break free from the shackles of the past the poetic words of the protagonist as he explains his decision to not pursue Priesthood seems to apply to the entire continent. "I need you to understand me. I dont aspire to be anything but a man among others, to find peace, without mystifications. Neither half a man nor a superman. I don't want veneration or dishonor; I don't need to feel guilty about anything, and I don't want anyone to laugh at me."