Rabee Jaber won the 2012 International Prize for Arabic Fiction on Tuesday night for his novel The Druze of Belgrade at the Rocco Forte hotel in Abu Dhabi. The event took place on the eve of the 22nd Abu Dhabi International Book Fair.

The Lebanese writer, who has been shortlisted twice before, takes home $50,000 and the guarantee of an English translation of his novel, to encourage its publication in English. The five shortlisted writers from across the Arab world–Lebanon, Egypt, Algeria and Tunisia–receive $10,000 in prize money. The prizes, supported by the Booker Prize Foundation and funded by the Emirates Foundation for Philanthropy, is in its sixth year and all previous winners have secured English publishing deals. Three previous winners–Youssef Ziedan, Mohammed Achaari, and Abdo Khal–have books coming out this year.

The plum, of course, is to get an American deal. Now, with the Arab Spring and the increased interest in the Middle East in America and the Western world, it seems evident that this is the future for Arab writers. The six writers were present at the awards and were also featured in short video clips in which they discussed their novels on their home turf. While all the books were written before the Arab Spring, all touch on the conditions and political situations in the authors’ countries. Bashir Mefti in Toy of Fire, for example, tackles a generational story of the Algerian civil war. Habib Seimi writes about a humble Tunisian family and the devastation in tunisia of the last ten years in The Women of al-Basatin.

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Recently, the Ministry of Culture and Information (MOCI) organized in Riyadh what they called the second intellectual forum. The word ‘intellectual’ here is a vague term used to describe a diverse group of people who work in the fields of arts and culture: writers, novelists, columnists, artists, journalists, etc.

This forum that took place in the Marriott hotel included discussion panels and meetings with senior government officials. It was also a chance for these so-called intellectuals, many of them have known each other for years, to meet and talk. Like most of these events, the forum almost passed unnoticed. That is, until al-Watan daily columnist Saleh al-Shehi tweeted this:

ما كان يحدث في بهو ماريوت على هامش ملتقى المثقفين عار وخزي على الثقافة.. آمنت أن مشروع التنوير الثقافي المزعوم في السعودية يدور حول المرأة

—
صالح الشيحي (@SalehAlshehi) December 31, 2011

Translation: What happened in the Marriott lobby on the margins of the intellectuals forum is a shame and a disgrace.. I believe that the so-called cultural enlightenment program in Saudi Arabia is centered on women

That tweet generated some angry responses by other people who attended the forum. Author Abdo Khal, winner of the International Prize for Arabic Fiction aka the Arabic Man Booker, tweeted: “Your allegation has crossed the line. Either you prove it or face trial for libel. You should apologize before things get there.”

Abdul Aziz Khoja, the minister of information and culture, and whose this event is happening under his auspices, also took to Twitter to make his feelings clear:

ان يقفز النقد فوق اهدافه وآدابه ويصل الى مرحلة القذف والتشويه، هذا هو الخزي. ولا ازيد

—
aziz khoja (@abdlazizkhoja) January 01, 2012

Translation: For criticism to cross its goals and ethics and reaches the stage of libel and slandering, that is what’s shame. And I will say no more.

Al-Shehi was unapologetic. He insisted that as a good Muslim there was no way he could remain silent about what happened at the Marriott lobby. He also said that he plans to sue Khoja. This kind of talk struck a chord with the conservatives, who took his tweet and ran with it because it reaffirms their view of the so-called liberal intellectuals as a group of immoral men and women.

During a talk show on Rotana TV, Khal pressed al-Shehi to say what did he see exactly that he deemed too scandalous. The latter kept refusing to answer, but at the end of the show he agreed to provide one example: some women there did not cover their hair.

The horror. Seriously? All this fuss over a few strands of hair? People thought al-Shehi saw some orgy going on or something. I mean look at these photos: some really hardcore stuff, no?

Some people think the government must be thrilled to see the elite of society bickering over trivialities like this instead of demanding political reform. For a government that paid billions in money handouts and made some merely symbolic concessions to prevent the Arab Spring from reaching their shores, a controversy like this one is certainly a welcome distraction.

The past few months have seen a wave of conservatism that al-Shehi and his supporters seem more than happy to ride. Hardliners are on the rise, and that shows in the heavy-handed manner in which authorities are dealing with recent calls for reform.

Earlier this week, the interior ministry ordered the arrest of 23 citizens wanted in connection to last October’s unrest in the city of Awwamiya in Qatif in the eastern part of the country. The ministry held a press conference to make the announcement and released a list of names and photos in a way that eerily similar to how the government dealt with Al Qaeda cells few years ago.

Few days later, the organizers of an event for arts and culture in Riyadh were ordered to cancel all the musical segments in their program, and two days ago long-time activist Mohammed Saeed Tayeb was stopped at the airport when he tried to board a plane to Cairo to attend his daughter’s wedding there.

In July 2010, Saleh al-Shehi wrote about meeting Abdo Khal in a Parisian cafe, where “girls of all nationalities and ages were flying around us like butterflies in the Spring season.” Why is he now all worked up about some Saudi women not covering their hair? Halal in Paris, haram in Riyadh?

Saleh al-Shehi kept repeating the word “shame” to describe what he saw at the now-infamous lobby, but failed to provide any specific examples except for the uncovered hair of some women. If some free strands of hair offend his sensibilities that much, then he probably should not be there in the first place. However, there are many other things in the country that he, and all of us, really, should be ashamed of like injustice, corruption and discrimination.

For shame, Saleh. For shame.

MidEastPosts

3 January 2012

As Saudi women celebrate their progress in gaining voting rights and expanded employment opportunities, conservatives have intensified their campaign to marginalize those achievements in a new round of attacks targeting liberal Saudi writers and thinkers sympathetic to the women’s movement.

Saudi newspaper columnist Saleh Al-Shehi made a vague critical comment on Twitter at the Saudi Intellectual Forum at Riyadh’s Marriott Hotel that men and women were behaving “shamefully” by socializing during breaks. He implied Saudi men are aiding and abetting the corruption of women in the name of progress. One leading woman writer described the tweet as opening “the gates of hell.”

Saudi Arabia’s internal cultural and religious wars over the last decade have focused on women’s rights issues almost to the exclusion of everything else. Voting, running for public office, employment, education and women’s bodies rarely go unmentioned among religious conservatives railing against the perceived corrupting influences of the West. In essence, the female body has become the battleground in an ongoing war to stem reform.

Saudi women activists and Islamic feminists over the past year have aggressively pursued male allies to help advance their cause. And many forum participants offer varying levels of support to better integrate women into society.

Conservatives, however, see the changing role of women a threat to the stability of society, especially considering that gender segregation is ingrained in the daily lives of all Saudis.

Al-Shehi’s Twitter shot heard throughout the kingdom took on a life of its own on Facebook and the online Saudi newspaper Mmlkah (Kingdom), which reported the incident. The coverage gave conservatives ammunition that Saudi Arabia’s liberal writers and intellectuals crossed the line with flagrant immoral behavior.

The Saudi Intellectual Forum was the second conference held in eight years to bring together more than 1,000 writers and thinkers. A key speaker was Princess Adela Bint Abdullah, daughter of King Abdullah and the wife of the kingdom’s education minister, Prince Faisal Bin Abdullah Bin Muhammad Al-Saud. Among the attendees were author Abdo Khal, winner of the 2010 International Prize for Arabic Fiction for his book “She Throws Sparks.” Khal often writes about individuals living on the margins of Saudi society, which led the Saudi government to ban some of his work as un-Islamic. Also participating was Saudi novelist Badriah Al-Bishr. The conference concluded Dec. 29.

Al-Shehi’s tweet in Arabic said, “I have believed that the so-called enlightenment culture project in Saudi Arabia revolves around women.” He added that it was shameful. Al-Shehi tweeted during a break in events while in the Marriott lobby crowded with men and women. Almost immediately, photographs circulated online showing Khal and other men speaking in close quarters with Saudi women. Mmlkah implied the photos were taken at the forum, but were actually taken at a 2010 Qatar conference. The tweet, according to some participants, implied that Saudi intellectuals and writers were not promoting cultural awareness, but pursuing an agenda of corruption.

A Facebook user identified as Lamh Al-Khawater from Bahar Al-Makhatr (some thoughts from the sea of danger) posted a link to the Mmlkah article on the popular Facebook page run by Dr. Sabah Abu Zinadah. Zinadah writes on social issues and has more than 5,000 followers. Al-Khawater wrote, “Does being educated mean to strip off our values and our morality and cross the red lines?”

Coverage from Mmlkah featured several photographs of forum participants and screenshots of the tweets. Al-Shehi’s comments earned praise from Sheikh Muhammad Al-Oraifi. “(He) is a good man and I have found him smart, wise and educated and (he) cares about his country and religion,” he wrote.

Dr. Sunhat Al-Otaibi wrote on Facebook that, “Saudi Arabia’s new elites have turned to eve-teasing (flirting) and exchanging numbers and dates and shameless behavior. (It’s) a Westernizing project to corrupt women.”

Khal threatened Al-Shehi with a defamation complaint if he did not apologize, but the harshest remarks came from Saudi writer Lamia Baeshen, an academic specializing in English literature. She invoked an Islamic rebuke that shakes up even the most stalwart Muslim conservative. “Hasbi allahu wa ne’mal wakeel (“Allah alone is sufficient for me and is the best trustee of my affairs.” Muslims generally interpret this as “I delegate Allah as my attorney to give me justice from you”),” she wrote on Facebook.

“You have opened gates of hell,” she added.

By threatening a defamation complaint, or more accurately libel, Khal raised the stakes in the war over cultural values, attitudes about women’s social behavior and the price paid for damaging reputations. While the burden of proof for defamation and libel is set high in Western democratic countries, the threshold is much lower in Saudi Arabia. A Saudi’s honor and personal and religious reputation often are the keys to professional success. A Saudi can face professional and personal ruin if his religious faith and morality are impugned and the allegations go unchallenged.

Yet, as personal attacks via Twitter and Facebook grow and the ironclad protections against libel once found in Saudi print media diminish, establishing personal and professional harm has become more difficult.

Westerners are often baffled over controversies involving men and women socializing in the same room, but Saudi society strictly adheres to gender segregation to avoid improper conduct. Separating men and women goes to the heart of Islam’s definition of morality. Men and women meeting in the lobbies of Jeddah’s upscale hotels are relatively common, but Riyadh hotels follow a stricter code of conduct. However, Riyadh’s Marriott Hotel staff members often overlook such interactions since foreigners often can only conduct business with Saudi businesswomen in a public lobby.

Some Saudi journalists view the Marriott incident as an expanded effort by conservatives to tame influential male intellectuals supporting the suffrage movement. Until last year, women activists have largely fought the battle alone. In 2009, 13 Saudi women journalists complained to the Ministry of Interior that the online newspaper Kul Al-Watan defamed them by alleging that “women journalists rely on illicit relationships with newspaper bosses to get support and fame.” In March 2011, Amal Zahid and Amira Kashgari, prominent writers on women’s issues for Al-Watan, were banned from writing.

One Saudi woman journalist said the mere suggestion of immoral behavior not only could leave a career in tatters, but also create a roadblock and even reverse advances in women’s rights.

“It’s not necessarily religious people who think this way,” she said. “It’s people blinded by backwardness and tribal culture. You look at what happened in the Marriott lobby and say to yourself, ‘How silly, it’s a big deal over nothing.’ But it is a big deal. If the men who support our cause are silenced for fear of being accused of corrupting Saudi women, we will get nowhere.”

Khal told the newspaper Al Hayat:

Winning the Arab Booker Prize has placed on my shoulders new responsibilities of supporting justice and righteousness, something I would not dare to do in the past. Now I can raise my voice. I ask all writers to boycott the show. (Translation by Arab News.)

«عندما يمتلك صبغة معينة، فعليه أن يستخدم هذه الصبغة من أجل الحق، وهذا ما منحني إياه حصولي على جائزة البوكر، والجائزة حمّلتني مسؤولية المنافحة عن الحق بشكل عام، ربما كنت أنافح في السابق صامتاً، لكن علي الآن أن ارفع صوتي».

This is after book-fair organizers prevented a number of Egyptians from participating. According to the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI), the Kuwait fair administration:

…decided to bar thirty five titles for distinguished Egyptian and Arab writers claiming the books were contrary to the fair and state policies, despite the fact that the barred books are not barred in any Arab country and they do not address the Kuwaiti government or society in any way.

The banned books include titles by Khairy Shalaby (whose Time Travels of the Man Who Sold Pickles and Sweets has just been released in English), Galal Amin, Gamal al-Ghitany, and Alaa al-Aswany.

Khal spoke out strongly against the bannings, and said other writers should follow his example.

Apparently, the same thing happened last year, as the Kuwait Times then reported that NGOs stage sit-in against censorship.

According to the Times:

The demonstrators issued a press release which were jointly signed by 24 NGOs that demanded the censorship laws applied on books and book exhibitions be revoked. The said NGOs argue that during the first three book exhibitions, no censorship was applied, “We did not witness any collapse in the social or moral structure of the society.”

More about censorship in Kuwait:

Hussain al-Qatari writes about the phenomenon, and asks (tongue in cheek) ‘Why don’t we censor terrible romance novels?’

Global Post reports on Kuwaiti film censorship.

And also from the Kuwait Times: Self-censorship the norm for media in Kuwait.

That may or may not be. In any case, names you should know:

Abdulrahman Munif (1933-2004). One of the most significant Arab writers of the last century and one of the first new Saudi novelists; his Cities of Salt quintet was chosen by Sinan Antoon (for our summer writing challenge) as one of the “five books you should read before you die. Daniel Burt, in his The Novel 100, ranked the quintet as the 71st greatest novel of all time. He was not one of the Arabic-language writers mentioned by Denys Johnson-Davies as in contention for the “Arab Nobel” (which went to Naguib Mahfouz in 1988), perhaps because virtually nothing of his was in English or French translation in 1987, and Cities of Salt wasn’t fully out until 1989.

As Saleh notes in his Qantara piece: “The locus of Munif’s work, his fiction as well as his non-fiction, circled around despotism and decadence in Arabia.”

Ghazi Al-Gosaibi (1940-2010). Al-Gosaibi was a poet, a novelist, and a reformist minister in the Saudi government. He died this August. His best-known novel, An Apartment Called Freedom (English translation: 1996), related the experiences of four young men who went to study in Cairo in the late 1950s before returning to their home countries in the Gulf. Other works in translation include Seven, The Gulf Crisis (nonfiction), and A Love Story.

Turki Al-Hamad (1953-present). Al-Hamad is a journalist and novelist, best known for his trilogy about the coming-of-age of Saudi teen Hisham al-Abir. The trilogy, although banned in the Gulf, has sold tens of thousands of copies. Kaelen Wilson-Goldie’s review in The Daily Star: Turki Al-Hamad’s not-so-explosive trilogy.

Abdo Khal (1962-present). The winner of the 2010 Arabic Booker for his novel She Throws Sparks. (Or, if I must, She Spews Sparks as Big as Castles.) Writes Saleh: “Khal portrays the atrocities perpetrated on the lives of the underprivileged people, the sheer violence exercised by the powerful on the weak.” From an excerpt translated by Anthony Calderbank (the main English-language translator of Saudi literature):

The name of our quarter is The Pit, or The Salt Mine, or The Bottom of Hell, or Inferno; all are terms that reflect torment, and our lives.

The quarter awakens before the sun’s rays penetrate the windows of the huddled houses to the contented lapping of the satiated sea. It awakens to the racket of boys preparing to set off down twisting lanes on their walk to school and the raucous banter of fisherman returning with fresh catches from trips begun the previous night, and songs on the radio exuberant in the dewy morning air: He said good morning without saying a word, Morning breeze, say hi to the one with radiant cheeks, We are farmers on the land of our country.

Yousef Al-Mohaimeed (1965-present). Al-Mohaimeed, who writes about love and the dispossessed, has two books out in English: Wolves of the Crescent Moon and Munira’s Bottle. I have reviewed Wolves of the Crescent Moon, which is promising but ultimately disappointing.  I haven’t yet read Munira’s Bottle, but Al-Mohaimeed has given some interesting interviews about it.

You can also read a short story by al-Mohaimeed on his website.

Leila Al-Johani (1969-present). Saleh writes that “Two female Saudi writers took the responsibility to experiment with style – Rajaa Alem and Laila Al-Johani. In her novel The Silk Road, Alem depicts Mecca as the setting of her narrative, writing about the lives of people coming from various parts of the Islamic world to perform the Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca.”

Rajaa Alem (1970-present). Alem has written two novels (Fatima: A Novel of Arabia and My Thousand & One Nights: A Novel of Mecca) with Tom McDonough, as well as many works of her own. McDonough interviews her here, for Bomb.

Rajaa Al-Sanea (1981-present). Wait! Maybe Rajaa Al-Sanea is the “Carrie Bradshaw of the Middle East.” You think? In any case, her Girls of Riyadh, published in Arabic in 2005 and English in 2007 (somewhat controversially, because of translation issues), has been extremely popular. It has been credited with starting a new wave of Saudi girl-lit.

Other phenomena:

The “naughty novelists,” who are accused of increasing sexual content in Saudi women’s lit: Samar al-Muqrin (Immoral Women), Siba al-Harz (Others), Wafaa’ Abdel Rahman (Love in the Capital), and Zaynab Hanafi (Features). Sometimes Rajaa Al-Sanea is also placed in this group.

Other Saudis longlisted for the Arabic Booker: Abdullah bin Bakheet for Street of Affections and Umaima Al Khamis for The Leafy Tree, both for the 2010 prize.

Also, Beirut39ers from Saudi (those who won a competition for the best 39 Arab writers under 40): Abdullah Thabit (novelist); Mohammad Hassan Alwan (novelist; I thought the excerpt he had in the Beirut39 collection, “Haneef from Glasgow,” had very good character sketching); and Yahya Amqassim (novelist).

Saudi writer Abdo Khal and the not-particularly-sexy cover of his Arabic Booker-winning She Throws Sparks

Yesterday, the AFP published a new look at shifts in the Saudi literary landscape. Yes, we know that Saudi novels of the last five years are talking about sex and money in shockingly frank ways. Yes, we know that many Gulf literary critics and writers—including celebrated Kuwaiti writer Laila Othman—have decried the ‘tyranny of sex’ in the new Saudi novel.

The AFP gave plot synopses of a number of these new novels, and asked prominent Saudi authors what they think about the “new” Saudi novel.

Controversial Saudi woman writer Badriya al-Bishr:

There is a new generation of novelists that uses a new language, simple and direct, in dealing with subjects that were not evoked in the past, like the right of a woman to be in love or to work.

Bishr’s latest novel, The Swing, tells the stories of three Saudi women in Europe.

Umaima al-Khamis, who was longlisted for the Arabic Booker for her novel al-Wafah, was not as excited as the others about the art and craft of the new Saudi novel. Al-Khamis:

Many young people are attracted to novels to express their views and ambitions. This could have a negative impact on the artistic quality of the novel, as it turns into a rebellious social pamphlet that aims at most to break stereotypes and uncover what is hidden.

But Abdo Khal, who won this year’s Arabic Booker for his novel She Throws Sparks, told the AFP that a novel is a “work of art and not an editorial or a political pamphlet.”

He added: “At the same time, art has accompanied all revolutions and reforms.”

I’m looking forward to having another go at Khal’s She Throws Sparks; the opening excerpt that came out when he won the Arabic Booker was rather uninspiring. But perhaps I’m just a raging nationalist who can’t stand to see non-Egyptians take home literary prizes; who knows.

The interviewer, Loay Mudhoon, didn’t ask Khal’s opinion about the conspiracy theories dancing around the award. Just a few short queries about Arabic literature in the Gulf. About this, Khal says:

This award represents a milestone for literature in the Gulf region, writing that has long been virtually ignored by the rest of the Arab world.

Hmm. Certainly Abdul Rahman Munif hasn’t been ignored, but, yes, I don’t hear about many authors from the peninsula. Still, Mudhoon could’ve pushed Khal a little more here. How is this literary “periphery” created? How does Khal imagine a resurgence in Gulf literature coming about? Which authors are being ignored, and by what mechanisms?

As Rakha has noted, the emphasis on awarding the Booker to “a writer from the Gulf” (rather than the best book) does play to the conspiracists. But, on the other hand, perhaps on Khal’s part it’s a becoming modesty:

There’s no question that awarding the Booker Prize to a writer from the Gulf region can help to break the monopoly of what is known as the “centre” of Arab culture, particularly as I regard this artificial division of Arab culture into a centre and a periphery – in relation to an historic cultural area such as the Arab world – as undignified.

Not literally… What I mean is, I’ve just returned from a Trauma Journalism workshop with BBC veteran, Max Easterman, which was my last event for Emirates Airline Festival of Literature.

I started this morning with a discussion session on the Arab Novel today, with Abdo Khal, Alawiyya Sobh and Bahaa Taher.  I was a bit disappointed in the turn out as I had read that these authors were very widely read in the Arab world, and when the session started, the host seemed to waffle on a little and the authors looked a little bored.  I suppose it might have been partly me getting tuned into to the simultaneous interpreters in my headphones and trying to relate them to the figures in front of me on the stage.  It is always harder to concentrate when not listening to your own language directly, but worth the effort to get a window into another world.

Once the authors were brought into the discussion, things began to liven up.  There is obviously strong feeling about the perception of the Arab novel in the West, but it became clear that there are deeper cultural and sometimes religious issues which also affect the way Arab authors write and how they interact with the rest of the world, including issues of censorship or political situations.  It got to the point where there seemed to be a much wider debate required and the session ran over a little in order to accommodate some passionate questioning from the audience.

It was a fascinating insight for me into a part of Arab culture which I had not yet experienced, and I am interested to delve deeper.

After rebooting some of my strength over lunch at mOre cafe, I eventually found my way to Deira International school, where I found the official EAFL poster (a hand-written scribble on a piece of paper saying ‘workshop’ with an arrow), directing me towards Max Easterman’s workshop.

The participants were a mixed bunch of journalists and non-journalists.  Max came across as very warm, unassuming and approachable and I felt privileged to have the opportunity to tap his brain for information learnt through his extensive career in journalism.  He imparted hugely valuable advice on dealing with trauma both as a journalist and through the responsibility of publicising traumatic news, so I hope what I write on my blog doesn’t traumatise anyone!

This weekend has been filled with dabbling, discussion, debate and delight and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

“I was out in the streets preaching, ‘you’ve got to believe in jihad or you’re going to hell.’ I really believed it. I even went home and tore up all the pictures and smashed the TV.” But Abdo’s spiritual leader was someone slightly more frightening than Elmer Gantry or Jerry Falwell. Juhaiman Al Otaibi was a militant fundamentalist who, at the end of 1979, in the company of 200 followers, attacked the Grand Mosque in Mecca and took hundreds of hostages, protesting the corruption of the royal family. It took two weeks for the government to retake the holy places. 250 people died, 600 were wounded. 68 terrorists were beheaded in the aftermath. Juhaiman was one. Abdo could have been another.

Now of course he is the Arab worlds new international literature star.

Novels have an important role to play in political discourse and it is pleasing to see the Arabic Booker getting more prominent each year. The fact that this book is speaking out again the “excessive world of the palace” should give hope to all who want to see people take on the big men of the Arab world.

Rakha called it: The 2010 prize has been awarded to the Saudi Arabian writer Abdo Khal for his novel Spewing Sparks As Big As Castles.

A few weeks ago, the Egyptian journalist and poet looked into his crystal ball and said:

Khal is the most established and celebrated writer on the shortlist, and one might be forgiven for expecting the jury to embrace the least contentious choice after so much public acrimony.

Tonight’s announcement was made by the International Prize for Arabic Fiction judging chair, Kuwaiti writer Taleb Alrefai.

Said Alrefai:

The winning novel is a brilliant exploration of the relationship between the individual and the state. Through the eyes of its two dimensional protagonist, the book gives the reader a taste of the horrifying reality of the excessive world of the palace.

Hopefully, the extract of Spewing Sparks As Big As Castles made available last week to subscribers of The National and Al Ittihad does not give a full idea of the book’s value Perhaps the translation was flawed? Based on the (3,000-word-ish) extracts, Spewing Sparks was not one of my top three.

The National quoted Khal as saying that he believed he won because he followed a “new approach” in his writing style. “Although I was chosen among the finalists, I did not expect to win.”

More:

• Chad Post blogs about the announcement ceremony, and even posts a photo (only slightly obscured by his thumb…).
• The National has a photo accompanying their story, but—despite the lack of a thumb—I find it less illustrative of the event. Although it’s clear Abdo Khal is pretty happy.
• I profile Abdo Khal here, although I forgot to mention that he was arrested last year at the Riyadh book fair for seeking the autograph of a female author. (This year, gender-segregation rules at the Riyadh fair were relaxed slightly, perhaps in part as a result of his action.)

And, why not, the whole opening to the published excerpt of Spewing Sparks As Big As Castles, translated by Anthony Calderbank:

People, shadows of themselves, crammed into a shabby quarter since long ago

The name of our quarter is The Pit, or The Salt Mine, or The Bottom of Hell, or Inferno; all are terms that reflect torment, and our lives.

The quarter awakens before the sun’s rays penetrate the windows of the huddled houses to the contented lapping of the satiated sea. It awakens to the racket of boys preparing to set off down twisting lanes on their walk to school and the raucous banter of fisherman returning with fresh catches from trips begun the previous night, and songs on the radio exuberant in the dewy morning air: He said good morning without saying a word, Morning breeze, say hi to the one with radiant cheeks, We are farmers on the land of our country.

Songs that soothe the soul, refreshing like the drizzle of summer rain, they pierce the breast, and lungs expand to receive life’s refreshing air. The alley awakes to the rattle of padlocks on shop doors as the owners open up, and the cries of street hawkers calling after young school children, tempting them to purchase a sweetie or a poorly manufactured toy or a snack that begins with the mouth and ends up with a runny tummy for whoever’s bowels have not been previously fortified.

All things pass with quiet deliberation towards their daily demise. The sun proceeds unhurriedly across the sky above our quarter until it hangs directly overhead and sheds its vertical rays, overwhelming the faded colours of the walls, or the doors, or faces, or freshly laundered clothes hung out to dry on the roof tops. Everything dries so incredibly quickly here.

And the last task our exhausted sun undertakes each day – after it has cast off its searing heat – is to descend towards the palace in complete peace.

#

A fine shortlist of nominees for the third ‘Arabic Booker’ has so far been overshadowed by manufactured controversy, Youssef Rakha writes.

For the third time in as many years, the discussion surrounding the International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF) has descended into bickering over literary politics. In the Arabic press, where the prize has received considerable attention and attracted equal amounts of controversy, the focus has rarely been on the virtues or demerits of the nominated titles – instead, in the three years since the award was introduced, debate about the politics of the prize has overshadowed discussion of the nominated books.

It seems self-evident that the entirety of any literature cannot be reflected in a single prize, however representative it aims to be – and IPAF does not aim to be representative. Yet since its launch in 2007, writers and publishers have tended to see the “Arabic Booker” as the alpha and omega of literary achievement. Disappointment and distress can hardly be unexpected.

When this year’s longlist of 16 books was released in November, the controversy began with geography: Egyptian authors won the prize in each of its first two years, and when only two Egyptian books turned up on the longlist, a spate of allegations were launched – mostly by disgruntled Egyptians – claiming that the jury had neglected Egyptian fiction to appease the rest of the Arab world.

Complainants like the Egyptian novelist Ibrahim abdul Meguid, who resented the exclusion of his novel Fi kull Usbou’ Yom Jum’ah (Each Week There is a Friday), declared that there was corruption within the IPAF and insisted “a conspiracy against Egypt” was afoot.

Soon thereafter, the conspiratorial consensus shifted to one of the longlisted books, Issmuhu al Gharam (Its Name is Love), by the Lebanese novelist Ulwiyya Subh. Her book, which had been popular and well-reviewed, was regarded by many as the likely winner of the eventual award – some of whom may have concluded that, after two male Egyptian winners, the jury might be inclined to shift its favour to a Lebanese woman.

This speculation took a more sinister turn, however, when interested parties alleged that the book was not merely likely but certain to win. The Lebanese poetry journal Al Ghawoun claimed to have “uncovered a clandestine deal” to fix the results, slinging accusations at Subh herself; at Joumana Haddad, a Lebanese writer and the administrator of the prize; at the Kuwaiti novelist Talib al Rifaie, who sits at the head of this year’s jury; and at the senior Egyptian critic Gaber Asfour, an avowed admirer of Subh.

These conspiracy theories were not dented by the fact that Subh’s book did not make the shortlist of six titles announced in December – instead the critics shifted course, insisting that the uproar over the initial accusations had led the jury, “cowing in to media intimidation”, to deliberately leave Subh off the list.

More controversy ensued with the resignation from the jury of the Egyptian critic Sherine Abu El Naga, who told this newspaper at the time that “the voting method was my main reason for resigning,” protesting that the shortlist decision was made without “dialogue or discussion”. As the gang imagined by Al Ghawoun started bickering among itself – Subh publicly insulting al Rifaie, for example – it became clear how random all the accusations had been.

The prize committee, alas, may have invited some of this speculation: though the members of the jury are supposed to remain secret until the shortlist of finalists is announced, this year the details were leaked and published in a Cairo newspaper two weeks prior to the announcement, more than enough time for speculation about hidden motives and social connections to run wild.

Each member of the jury, it turned out, was a friend or acquaintance of Subh, giving fuel to the conspiracists – and yet such circumstances are partially inevitable: Arab literary circles are small and perilously cliquish.

The public consternation – at least in those same tightly-wound literary circles – over the administration of the prize has served to obscure the grander intentions of the award, the valorisation and promotion of Arabic-language fiction. Instead, the literary community has been polarised into pro- and anti-Booker factions, ensuring that future rounds will continue to be clouded by suspicion, particularly over the nomination of younger writers whose reputations have not yet been established.

A more sensible way of evaluating the prize might be to look at the previous laureates, and to ask what each one signifies as a work of Arabic fiction – and as the book chosen by the prize committee to be sent forth into English translation, where it will represent the impossibly diverse range of literature in Arabic for western readers.

Baha Taher’s Sunset Oasis, which took the first prize in 2008, depicted Egyptian-British relations during colonial times; its translation was funded by a grant from the British philanthropist (and Granta owner) Sigrid Rausing, and published by Sceptre in 2009. Last year’s winner, Azazeel (Beelzebub), by the Egyptian novelist Youssef Zeidan, which tackled religious intolerance in the pre-Islamic Middle East, will be published in English this spring by Atlantic Books.

If there is a common thread that connects the first two winners – each of which, it should be added, was chosen by a separate jury – it is that both stand as affirmations of a pluralistic and liberal value system, one that generally looks positively at the encounters between East and West: in Sunset Oasis, the equality of the races and the right to (national and personal) freedom despite the horrors of colonialism; in Azazeel, the importance of tolerance and understanding in the face of dogma and religious extremism.

Among this year’s shortlisted titles, the London-based Palestinian writer Rabie al Madhoun’s Ass Sayyidah min Tal Abeeb (The Lady from Tel Aviv) hews closest to this East-West tune, but with a more immediate pitch than the historical fictions of Taher and Zeidan.

The novel, which has been called a work of “post-Oslo resistance literature”, tells the triple story of al Madhoun himself, his writer-protagonist Walid Dahman, and the hero of Dahman’s own fictional novel-in-progress. On a plane from London back to Gaza to see his mother for the first time in decades, Dahman meets an attractive Israeli actress. Later, back in London, she is killed in cold blood as a result of her previous amorous involvement with the son of an Arab leader.

The novel has been praised as much for its entertaining narrative as for being among the first Arabic books that deal with the Arab-Israeli conflict undogmatically, showing psychological depth on both sides while accurately portraying the Palestinian tragedy. By prioritising the human over the political, opposing the racism inherent in “nationalist” discourse and siding with human rights, it goes even further than the previous two winners in affirming liberal values.

In the young Lebanese writer Rabee Jabir’s novel America and the older Egyptian novelist Mohammad al Mansi Qindeel’s Yawm Gha’im fil Bar al Gharbi (A Cloudy Day on the West Side), themes of confessional and ethnic intermingling come to the fore in the context of long, multifaceted narratives with heavy historical components. In both cases the encounter between East and West again figures prominently. America is a fictional account of early 20th-century Lebanese immigration to the United States, told from the viewpoint of a country woman who follows her husband to New York.

Yawn Gha’im fil Bar al Gharbi opens with the story of a Muslim woman in late 19th-century Upper Egypt who abandons her young daughter, Aisha, to protect her from the brutality of a merciless stepfather – but baptises her as a Christian before doing so. This coincidence of conversion, it later turns out, leads Aisha – who grows up to become a translator – to fall in love with a fictional version of the famous British archaeologist Howard Carter, transcending the boundaries of religious, national and ethnic identity alike.

Once again, the writer speaks for the rights of the individual woman and opens up humane spaces within an otherwise unequal colonial set-up, while showing the flimsy nature of religious identity for what it is.

The remaining three novels on this year’s shortlist give less attention to the crossing of borders and the intermingling of cultures; each zeroes in on the particularities of national or local cultures, delving into local specifics – in one case, with savage satire – to reveal the tensions within changing societies.

’Indama Tashkish adh Dhi’aab (When Wolves Grow Old), by the Palestinian-Jordanian writer Jamal Naji, employs a wide cast of characters, and a plot drawn from the world of detective genre fiction, to depict the social malaise of contemporary Amman – a panorama of the city that sets out to expose sexual and political repression, the hunger for power among intellectuals and religious leaders, and the rise of Islamic fundamentalism.

The young Egyptian Mansoura Ez Eldin’s Wara’ al Firdawss (Beyond Paradise) steers clear of the explicitly political to chronicle an obscure episode in the history of the Nile Delta – a period, which concluded in the late 1980s, when surging demand for red brick made from the mud in the Delta created a sudden explosion of wealth among some enterprising local landholders. As in Naji’s book, there are many characters and a complex, if hardly suspenseful, storyline, which follows the intensely personal journey of a young female literary magazine editor from a small town in the Nile Delta to Cairo.

Though the so-called “Arabic Booker” has not, for obvious reasons, attracted the same attention from gamblers as its British namesake, the smart money this year may be on the Saudi novelist Abdu Khal’s grotesque satire of power, Tarmi bi Sharar (Spewing Sparks as Big as Castles). Khal is the most established and celebrated writer on the shortlist, and one might be forgiven for expecting the jury to embrace the least contentious choice after so much public acrimony.

But Khal’s book is not without its own potential for controversy, and it has little to offer in the way of cross-cultural pieties or the tolerance afforded by such encounters. The novel is set in a destitute Jeddah neighbourhood and in the palace that has recently been built next door. The owner of the palace is a well-connected, wealthy and powerful man, about whose origins little is known. The owner, a ruthless and sadistic tycoon, seizes and tortures those who have crossed him; he enlists the narrator – a child of the neighbourhood notorious as a homosexual and a bully – to sexually abuse his victims, who are videotaped as they suffer.

But the narrator, in Khal’s account, is not just an unthinking instrument in the hands of power: he is a participant in the violence, an agent of political oppression, but also a victim of economic dispossession. Khal’s depiction of the narrator’s extended family and neighbours – particularly his bravely disapproving aunt, from whose eyes the sparks of the title emanate – reflects an entire society caught up in the horror of inequality and the absurdity of power.

Of course, this year’s shortlist does not reflect the entirety of contemporary Arabic literature, but there can be plenty of merit in six books. While the bickering will inevitably continue well beyond the announcement of the winning title on March 2, it is important to note that not one of these books is in any sense unworthy of the award. Reasonable critics can disagree whether they are the absolute best or most innovative on offer. I for one, was surprised to see that the Iraqi novelist Ali Badr, a prolific chronicler of Baghdad who combines engaging plots with a sharp and versatile intellect, failed for the third time to make it from the longlist to the shortlist, this time for Mulouk ar Rimal (Sand Kings).

It was similarly disappointing to see the exclusion of the Egyptian novelist Ibrahim Farghali’s Abnaa al Gabalawai (Children of Gabalawi), which represents the vanguard of a home-grown Egyptian magical realism that is very different from its Latin American counterpart. But it seems indisputable that these six books are in fact reasonably representative of contemporary Arabic literature. And regardless of the extent to which the “Arabic Booker” remains dogged by ungrounded accusations of favouritism, this year’s shortlist demonstrates that, while writers and publishers may not be entirely immune to such faults, the literature they produce remains a strong statement against them.