August 31, 2006

Mahfouz Appreciation

I was asked to write a piece for the Nation magazine about the passing of Egyptian novelist Naguib Mahfouz. Here's the first paragraph:

The story of Egyptian novelist Naguib Mahfouz is the story of modern Egypt itself. Born in 1911 in the Gamaliya district of Cairo, Mahfouz witnessed the last days of British colonial rule and Ottoman influence, the nationalist struggle of Saad Zaghloul, the reigns of King Fuad and King Farouq, the military coup of 1952, the establishment of the republic, Gamal Abdel Nasser's takeover in 1954, the Suez Canal crisis, the rule of Anwar al-Sadat, the Camp David accords of 1978 and finally the brutal dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak and the rise of Islamic fundamentalism.

You can read it all here.

Thursday Giveaway: Lisa Teasley's Heat Signature

This week, I'm giving away a copy of Los Angeles-based novelist Lisa Teasley's new book Heat Signature. Heat charts the emotional journey of loss, as a young man tries to cope with the murder of his mother, which occurred sixteen years ago. The book has already received great reviews from the San Francisco Chronicle and the Los Angeles Times.

The first person to send me an email with the subject "Heat" gets the book. Also be sure to include your mailing address.

Update: The winner is Cigdem A. from Toronto.

August 30, 2006

Season of Migration

I need a copy of Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih, in the original Arabic, for a piece I'm thinking of writing. If you have an extra copy that you're willing to part with, could you email me? I would be happy to trade several books for it.

Naguib Mahfouz: 1911-2006

Egyptian novelist and Nobel Prize winner Naguib Mahfouz passed away today in Cairo. Although the news is not a shock--he had been seriously ill for a few weeks--it is still difficult to accept. I find myself thinking about the first time I read him, when I was twelve or thirteen. Our high school didn't have a library, so our Arabic teachers organized a "borrowing club"--each of us would bring a book at the beginning of the trimester, and the books thus collected formed the class's pool, from which we could choose what to read every other week. That's how I came to Naguib Mahfouz's Miramar, and, later, to his other novels and stories. I will have more to say about him and his significance to Arabic letters very soon. Stay tuned.

And Speaking of Stereotypes...

Yes, I am the "Arab chick" referred to in this Stranger article about Gary Shteyngart.

The More Things Change...

It really is unbelievable that, in 2006, a book critic at a major newspaper should write the following sentence, and actually get it published:

There are certain books that are so similar to one another they almost beg to be grouped together. This is largely true of Indian novels. Look closely at the ones published in the past, say, 25 years, and you’ll see that they’re virtually identical, in theme if not in style and content. For me, Midnight’s Children is indivisible from A Fine Balance, which in turn cannot be separated from A Suitable Boy. Directly or indirectly, all three books - and there are other notable examples - are concerned with the same thing: the state of Indian society in the wake of independence and partition.

The critic is Stephen Thompson, writing for The Scotsman. As Ed points out, this isn't Thompson's first brush with stupid generalizations. Last month, he dismissed all post-colonial African literature as "clichéd" because it continues to deal with the effect of European occupation of the continent.

August 29, 2006

When The Levees Broke

I have basic cable only, but this month I forked out the 20 extra bucks and subscribed to HBO--so I can watch Spike Lee's documentary about Hurricane Katrina, When The Levees Broke, which airs again tonight, in its entirety. If you can, please watch it.

Still Catching Up

I am still catching up with email, with reading, with the news, with the world, and so desperately trying not to post another rant. We'll see how it goes.

Controversial Choukri

The life of Moroccan novelist Mohamed Choukri is the stuff of legends: Illiterate until the age of 20, Choukri went on to learn how to read, became a schoolteacher, wrote novels and non-fiction works, and eventually became the head of the Arabic department at a Tangier college. But a controversy has erupted recently: Hassan Aachab, a friend of Choukri's, now claims that the author started his schooling at the age of eleven, not twenty. Of course, Choukri passed on in November 2003, and can neither corroborate nor deny the charges.

Thanks to Amine for the link.

Mahfouz Ailing

Naguib Mahfouz, who has been hospitalized since July 16, had seemed to be doing better last week, but I am told by a reliable reader that the Nobel winner is again in critical condition. We send him best wishes for a full recovery.

Update: A reader from Cairo writes in to say that "{Mahfouz's] condition does not look good as he still has some internal bleeding" and that "the obituaries are already being written." This is very upsetting.

August 28, 2006

Fall Previews

Trying to decide what to read this fall? Check out Marie Arana's fall preview in the Washington Post, and Oscar Villalon's forecast in the S.F. Chronicle. After perusing the pieces, I discovered that Random House is publishing a cool anthology: The Anchor Book of Modern Arabic Fiction, edited by Denys Johnson-Davies. I want a copy. NOW.

HODP in Women's Review of Books

The July/August issue of the Women's Review of Books includes a piece on my debut book, Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits, and Assia Djebbar's novel Children of the New World, which finally appeared here in the U.S. in a translation by Marjolijn de Jager, forty years after its original publication. Unfortunately, this (very perceptive) review is not available online. Still, I couldn't resist including at least this bit from Nadia Boudidah Falfoul's piece:

In contrast to Djebar’s patriotic men and women who fight a common enemy and work toward a common dream, Lalami’s isolated characters share only their desperation. Although the French colonizer left Morocco decades ago, these people are estranged and displaced in their own country. Djebar’s fellagas, who sacrifice their lives for their country, have been replaced by Lalami’s harragas, who sacrifice their lives to flee it.

More here.

Speaking of Edward P. Jones

Michael Taeckens, director of publicity at Algonquin, wrote in to say that the 2007 edition of New Stories from the South will be edited by...Edward P. Jones. Yay! The 2006 edition of the seminal series just came out a couple of weeks ago, and the stories in it were selected by guest editor Allan Gurganus.

Yacoubian Press

Alaa Al-Aswany's best-selling novel, The Yacoubian Building, finally came out in the United States this month, in a translation by Humphrey Davies. Reviews have begun to appear: Here's Lorraine Adams' take in the New York Times and John Freeman's assessment in the San Francisco Chronicle. For those who care, here's what I thought of it when I read it last year.

New Jones Collection

I am a huge fan of Edward P. Jones, so I've been eagerly anticipating the publication of his new collection of short stories, All Aunt Hagar's Children. Several of the stories in the book have already appeared in print (in the New Yorker, for example) and I knew I would have at least the delight of re-reading those, if nothing else. But the rest of the book enchants both Dave Eggers, as you can see from his glowing review in this Sunday's New York Times Book Review, and Jonathan Yardley, whose write-up in the Washington Post begins with the words: "Now there can be no doubt about it: Edward P. Jones belongs in the first rank of American letters." Damn right.

Back Home, At Last

I am finally back at home, after an exhilarating (and exhausting) stay in Middlebury, Vermont for Bread Loaf. Posting should resume soon.

August 24, 2006

B-Loaf, Mid-Week

The last two days at Bread Loaf were my busiest yet. On Tuesday, I taught a craft class on "The Character's Language" or what to do when the characters we create do not speak the language in which we write. If your heroine speaks Urdu or Igbo or Arabic, if she thinks in Japanese or Afrikaans, how do you render her thoughts and her speech convincingly? We took a critical look at several excerpts from the work of: Mary Yukari Waters, Andre Dubus III, Mona Simpson, Ahdaf Soueif, Junot Díaz, Ha Jin, and Aleksandar Hemon. I also co-taught the regular fiction workshop with Robert Boswell that day.

Then on Wednesday, I gave a reading with the poet Carl Phillips. Instead of picking something from Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits, I read two sections from the first chapter of my current novel. It was the first time I had ever done a public reading of a manuscript still in progress, but I figured it would motivate me to get my act together and finish my current revision.

I also attended readings by the wait staff and the social staff--these are highly anticipated events at Bread Loaf, because the material is usually excellent, and this year's batch was no exception.

August 21, 2006

B-Loaf Busy

I am still in Vermont, fighting off bugs (what is it with bugs in this state? They've got mosquitoes the size of birds, and ants and spiders and bees and flies and moths and a dozen other insects I can't even name) and having far too great a time to blog much at all. Yesterday we attended a great lecture by Josip Novakovich on writing in English as a second language, Helen Schulman read from her upcoming novel A Day at the Beach, and Peter Orner from his recently published one (The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo.) We also had an amazing craft class with Robert Boswell, in which we read Mary Robison's story "Pretty Ice" and studied why it worked so well. Then there were readings by Toi Derricotte and Gonzalo Barr and David Tucker and half a dozen other people whom I'm sure I'm forgetting. Now I have to go prepare for a class I'm teaching tomorrow. More Soon.

August 18, 2006

Sarvas on Grass

Los Angeles-based writer and blogger Mark Sarvas offers his thoughts on the Günter Grass controversy:

We're not suggesting - as some commentors seem to think - that he should be punished for youthful mistakes or for having been a Nazi (although it's scarcely a fait accompli that he shouldn't). We are saying that the sheer, naked, breathtaking hypocrisy here is inarguable. This cuts to the heart of what one requires of one's moral exemplars, self-appointed or otherwise. A certain amount of consistency seems a minimum; at the other extreme, being outrightly two-faced for a period of 60 years seems ample grounds to merit reassessment of Grass' place. Talk of "punishment" and the like is silly, but as Bill Clinton knew, it's all about the legacy - and Grass' should be reevaluated and appropriately and permanently diminished over this.

There is also a great discussion going on in the comment section of his blog.

Quotable

"[A]buse is not sanctified by its duration or abundance; it must remain susceptible to question and challenge, no matter how long it takes."

Chinua Achebe, Home and Exile.

August 17, 2006

Grass Revelation Fallout

Günter Grass's revelation late last week that he had been a member of the SS when he was seventeen years old has sparked quite a furor in Germany:

The weekend revelations have left many questioning his motives. "It is a disappointment, in a way he has betrayed the whole generation," said his biographer, Michael Jürgs, who said Grass had never spoken of it during their many conversations.

"We adored him not only as a moral icon, but as a figure who was telling the truth even when the truth hurts."

The Guardian wraps up some of the reactions, which range from demands by the Christian Democratic Party that Grass return his Nobel, to statements by Salman Rushdie that Grass's service was "a youthful mistake" and that his literary work over 70 years should be taken into account. What do you think?

Angolan Refugee Deported

According to the Arabist, Paulin Kuanzambi, an Angolan refugee in Morocco who now works with a local NGO, has been kidnapped by Moroccan secret service agents posing as journalists. He was allegedly driven to the border with Algeria, along with Marcel Amiyeto. Kuanzambi is a legal refugee, recognized as such by the UN High Commissioner, so there is absolutely no excuse or legal basis for his summary deportation. It's unclear whether UNHCR will act on his behalf.

A Day in Hell

Okay, so I lied. I can't keep away from the news. Look at this: An average of more than 110 Iraqis were killed each day in July. But Bush & Co. want you to know, dear taxpayer, that this is not a civil war.

The Loaf

One of the great things about being here on the Bread Loaf campus is that cell phones don't work, and there are only a few computers to check email, so I have been blissfully out of touch with world news until this morning. My first day here was made of reunions with friends, like Mary Akers, Cliff Garstang, Katrina Denza, Nina McConigley, Paul Yoon, and many others, and also enjoying some very Loaf-y experiences, like drinks at Treman before dinner and green tea at the barn after the evening reading. Last night was the official start of the conference, with a welcome talk by Michael Collier, and readings by the amazing Percival Everett and Linda Gregerson.

August 15, 2006

In Transit

I am on travel today, heading out to Middlebury, Vermont, for the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, where I will be a fiction fellow. Posting is likely to be sporadic over the next few days.

August 14, 2006

Hoop en Andere Gevaarlijke Verlangens

That is the title of the Dutch edition of Hope, which is coming out in October with Sirene. And here is the Dutch cover:

The Blurb

Kevin Sampsell examines the popularity of book blurbs:

Say you're a book on a bookstore shelf. A first novel perhaps, or something by a lesser-known author. According to marketing expert Dan Poynter, book buyers look at a book for an average of 23 seconds (eight for the front, fifteen for the back) before making a positive or negative decision on it.

Does it help if you have Bret Easton Ellis or Sue Grafton trumpeting your skills? What if the prospective reader hates Bret Easton Ellis?

And he brings his unique perspective to the piece: He's both an author and a bookseller.

Booker Longlist

The Booker longlist has been announced. I'm thrilled to see that Kiran Desai's The Inheritance of Loss has been included. Other nominated books of note: Hisham Matar's In The Country of Men, Nadine Gordimer's Get A Life, and David Mitchell's Black Swan Green. I predict the prize will go to Sarah Waters' The Night Watch.

Grossman's Son Killed

The son of Israeli novelist and peace activist David Grossman has been killed in battle in southern Lebanon, AP reports:

Staff Sgt. Uri Grossman who served in an armored unit, was killed Saturday when an anti-tank missile hit his tank, according to the military. He was 20. Twenty-four IDF soldiers were killed on Saturday in the bloodiest day of battles.

Tearful friends and relatives gathered Sunday morning at the Grossman home in the Jerusalem suburb of Mevasseret Tzion.

A statement from the family described Uri as a young man with a wonderful sense of humor, who planned to travel abroad and study theater after his scheduled release from the army in November.

You can read the story in full here, including more about Grossman's positions on this particular war.

Related:
Jess Row recommends David Grossman's See Under: Love for MG.

Facelift

In honor of the upcoming paperback release of Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits, my book site received a fresh look.

Reading Camus

George Bush is said to be reading Albert Camus' The Stranger while on vacation. How appropriate. A novel about a Frenchman who kills a nameless Arab for no discernible reason, by an author who once said of the brutal French occupation of Algeria: "Je crois à la justice, mais je défendrai ma mère avant la justice." ("I believe in justice, but I will defend my mother before justice.")

(via.)

Cautious Optimism

The adoption of U.N. resolution 1701 is cause for very cautious optimism. Both Israel and Hizbullah have agreed to a ceasefire, but of course it's too early to tell whether it will hold. The very sad truth is that, from a strategic point of view, Hassan Nasrallah comes out of this horrendous tragedy at a huge political advantage: His fighters have sustained relatively few casualties; the large number of civilian deaths has resulted in an across-the-board surge of support for him; and disarmament is obviously thoroughly unenforcable. If he wished, he could now run for Prime Minister of Lebanon and win.

Meanwhile, Olmert's popularity has been steadily declining since the first week of hostilities; he faces tough questions at home as to why the best trained and most funded army in the region could not defeat a few hundred guerillas; and no doubt Olmert's opponents have been watching. It will be interesting to see what the political fallout will be.

For most people in the region, however, this war has no victors. On the Israeli side, 41 civilians and 108 soldiers were killed; and 300,000 people were displaced. On the Lebanese side, 1,130 civilians, 35 soldiers and 65 Hizbollah guerrillas were killed; and 1 million people were displaced. Lebanon has lost much of its infrastructure: Airport, seaport, roads, hospitals, and factories. All the bridges on the Litani river have been destroyed. And peaceful cohabitation has been set back another 20 or 30 years.

August 11, 2006

Department of WTF

Nobel Prize winner Günter Grass has revealed that he served in the Waffen-SS during World War II.

The author, best known for his first novel "The Tin Drum" and an active supporter of Germany's Social Democratic Party (SPD), said his wartime secret had been weighing on his mind and was one of the reasons he wrote a book of recollections which details his war service. The book is out in September.

"My silence through all these years is one of the reasons why I wrote this book," the paper quoted Grass as saying in a preview of its Saturday edition. "It had to come out finally."

You can read the Reuters release here.

'Dissident' News

Regis Behe talks to Nell Freudenberger about her debut novel, The Dissident, which is released this week.

Freudenberger also explores ideas about the ownership of art and how it is verified. In the early 1990s, the Beijing East Village artist's colony became known for its photography and performance art. When Freudenberger visited Beijing, she found not only that the low-rent artists' residences had been torn down and made into a park, but that some denied its existence, despite books that were written about it.

"It was interesting to think that if a few people feel that a place is there and they're making work there, they're referring to it as the East Village, it is there," she says. "But for a lot of other people, it's not significant enough to be a place. I guess ambiguous situations are what's interesting in fiction."

Freudenberger also discusses the question of creating art with characters from a different culture than her own.

Making Sense of Sept. 11

Over at NPR, critic A.O. Scott, writer Ken Kalfus, and poet C.K. Williams discussed whether art can help make sense of the terrorist attacks of 9/11.

Coincidentally, a Washington Post poll reveals that 30% of Americans do not know what year 9/11 happened.

August 10, 2006

Writers Against The War

Noam Chomsky, José Saramago, Eduardo Galeano, Gore Vidal, Arundhati Roy, Russell Banks, Thomas Keneally, Toni Morrison, and ten other writers have signed a petition against the current war in the Middle East.

The latest chapter of the conflict between Israel and Palestine began when Israeli forces abducted two civilians, a doctor and his brother, from Gaza. An incident scarcely reported anywhere, except in the Turkish press. The following day the Palestinians took an Israeli soldier prisoner--and proposed a negotiated exchange against prisoners taken by the Israelis--there are approximately 10,000 in Israeli jails.

That this "kidnapping" was considered an outrage, whereas the illegal military occupation of the West Bank and the systematic appropriation of its natural resources--most particularly that of water--by the Israeli Defense (!) Forces is considered a regrettable but realistic fact of life, is typical of the double standards repeatedly employed by the West in face of what has befallen the Palestinians, on the land allotted to them by international agreements, during the last seventy years.

Read the rest here.

Galloway on the War

Several people have sent me the link to the George Galloway appearance on Sky TV. Galloway did a good job rebutting the anchor's assumptions. But what a sad thing that we must rely on a guy who praises Syria's Asad to stand up for the Lebanese and the Palestinians. God, how I miss Edward Said.

Thursday Giveaway: T.C. Boyle's Talk Talk

This week, I'm giving away a copy of T.C. Boyle's Talk Talk, which just came out last month. Of the novel, the Washington Post's Ron Charles wrote: "Talk Talk grabs hold of the fragile structures that establish who we are and what we own and shakes them apart. Considering Boyle's recent subjects -- sex research (The Inner Circle), hippies (Drop City), environmental apocalypse (A Friend of the Earth) -- it's remarkable that his most exciting novel yet should focus on the tedium of ruined credit scores and fraudulent drivers' licenses. But Talk Talk benefits from Boyle's highbrow/lowbrow style: He knows how to drill down through the surface of everyday life into our core anxieties, and he knows how to write constantly charging, heart-thumping chase scenes."

As usual, the first reader to email me with a request gets the book. Please use the subject line: "Boyle." Please include your mailing address. Previous winners excluded.

Update: The winner is Rebecca H. from Bethel, Connecticut.

August 09, 2006

Call for Subs: Iconoclasts and Visionaries

To celebrate the fifth anniversary of the very cool Los Angeles-based Levantine Cultural Center, Jordan El Grably is editing an anthology on the theme "Iconoclasts and Visionaries." You can find details here.

Iron Men

Jess Row (The Train to Lo-Wu) examines the rather recent and rather disturbing tendency to approach gender roles from a decidedly traditional outlook (Caitlin Flanagan, Harvey Mansfied, et al.). Row wonders why these anachronistic tomes haven't been met with other books, books that celebrate "contemporary relationships and gender roles without panic, dread, or shame." So he turns to Iron John, by Robert Bly.

Dixon Interview

There's a great interview with Stephen Dixon on Failbetter. Here's an excerpt, in which Dixon discusses genre boundaries:

Both I. and End of I. read like collections of interrelated stories, but McSweeney’s released them as novels. Was this a marketing decision? How do you view them? Does the genre distinction matter to you?

The genre distinction doesn't matter to me much. To me, an interrelated collection of stories about the same character or characters can also be called a novel. You get a full life in these collections, which you also do in a novel, and other similarities. In 1979, Harper & Row published my work Quite Contrary. I insisted it was an interrelated collection of stories; they, maybe for marketing reasons, said it was a novel. God knows why I was so insistent on calling it an interrelated etc. etc... They added the subtitle The Mary and Newt Story as a compromise. I wish I'd gone along with their suggestion about calling it a novel, because I now see that's what it is.

The interview is freely available online.

Moroccan Writer and Israeli Filmmaker Speak Out

Moroccan novelist, poet, and essayist Tahar Ben Jelloun has an op-ed in Le Monde about the war in the Middle East, titled "These friends that push Israel toward the abyss." Here is an excerpt:

Israël tombe aussi, mais consentant, dans l'engrenage de la politique désastreuse de G. W. Bush. On sait que de tout temps, l'Amérique a été le soutien indéfectible de l'Etat d'Israël, mais il faut parfois choisir ses amis. Or Bush ne peut pas faire du bien pour cette région. Il n'a, contrairement à Jimmy Carter et Bill Clinton, aucun désir de voir se concrétiser un projet de paix. Bush est hanté par la haine du monde arabo-musulman parce qu'il est incapable de le comprendre et encore moins de le respecter. Il faudra qu'un jour la justice se penche sur les crimes commis au nom de la politique de ce président ; son arrogance et son fanatisme ont fait des centaines de milliers de victimes en Irak et, aujourd'hui, par son appui systématique à la politique de Sharon et à présent de son successeur, il est aussi responsable des centaines de civils morts sous des bombes qu'il a fait acheminer vers Israël.

Here is my translation, for those of you who do not read French:

Israel falls also, but willingly, in the cycle of George W. Bush's disastrous policies. One knows that America has always been an indefectible supporter of the State of Israel, but one must sometimes pick one's friends. Bush cannot do the right thing for this region. He has, contrary to Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, no desire to see a peace project become reality. Bush is haunted by the hatred of the Arab-Muslim world because he is incapable of understanding it, much less respecting it. One day it will be necessary for justice to look at the crimes committed in the name of this president's policies; his arrogance and his fanaticism have made hundreds of thousands of victims in Iraq and, today, by his systematic support for the policies of Sharon and now his successor, Bush is also responsible for hundreds of civilian deaths under the bombs he had sent to Israel.

Israeli filmmaker Amos Gitai also contributes a piece under the title "Ruined hopes in the camp of the moderates" to the Point de Vue section. A snippet:

Pour nous Israéliens de gauche, la guerre que nous vivons en ce moment est particulièrement complexe sur le plan politique. Depuis des années, par des articles, des livres ou des films, nous cherchons à démontrer que la solution est le retrait des territoires occupés. Or Israël s'est retiré de Gaza et du Liban, et c'est exactement là où le Hezbollah a frappé. Dans la partie du Golan qui est toujours occupée, en revanche, tout est calme. On sait ce que la droite israélienne va dire : se retirer n'était pas la solution. Pour ma part, je crois toujours qu'Israël devrait continuer les retraits, et même que la coexistence pacifique n'est pas seulement un espoir lointain : elle finira par se produire. Mais en attendant, la lutte contre le Hezbollah n'a pas de solution "politiquement correcte".

And here is my translation:

For us, leftist Israelis, the war that we are living through at the moment is particularly complex on the political level. For years, through articles, books, or movies, we have sought to demonstrate that the solution is withdrawal from the Occupied Territories. Israel has retreated from Gaza and Lebanon, and yet that is exactly where Hizbullah has struck. In the part of the Golan that is still under occupation, however, everything is calm. We know what the Israeli right will say: Withdrawal was not the solution. For my part, I still believe that Israel should continue with the withdrawals, and even that peaceful coexistence is not only a far-off hope: It will end up happening. But in the meantime, the fight against Hizbullah has no "politically correct" solution.

Only one problem with that stance: Israel did not simply sit on the sidelines after its withdrawals. For example, since Barak's withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000, the IDF conducted numerous "incursions" into Lebanese territory. I'm just saying.

August 08, 2006

A Correction

Yesterday, I linked to an essay in the SF Chronicle by Ilan Stavans, in which he criticized the Library of America for not including Latinos in its two-volume anthology on civil rights. Earlier today, I received this email from Carol Polsgrove, who served on the advisory board for Reporting Civil Rights:

The reason Library of America's two volume anthology Reporting Civil Rights did not include Latinos was that this volume was devoted explicitly, as the dust jacket says, to "the struggle of African-Americans for freedom and equal rights." Let's hope the Library of America takes Ilan Stavans' criticism to heart, however, and publishes future volumes that expand our too limited view of American history.

Dr. Polsgrove is also a professor of journalism at Indiana University.

Uncontested Belonging

In The Guardian Comment blog, Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has a post about her love for Nigeria, despite of, or perhaps because of, all the problems she sees:

The road is full of huge potholes and I get a little jumpy, and wonder what it takes to fill them up. This is why religion is a thriving business: people travel from a town to another without a mishap and it becomes a miracle, a testimony in church, another reason to give money to the pastor.

We stop to buy a newspaper. The major headline is of another man who has been arrested by the anti-corruption body, EFCC. We wonder what he has done to offend the president; everybody knows the EFCC investigates people with who, as we say, the president has a quarrel.

On the back page, there is the fiery face of the leader of the Nigerian Labour Congress, a man I much admire, who quaintly calls himself "comrade". The federal government has decided to sack 33,000 workers, a "right-sizing" they say, rather than a downsizing. There is a resigned bitterness in my parents' tone when we talk about this. They are retired university staff, both owed years of pensions. Now they are paid 60% of their pensions each month. Last month, they went for a verification exercise, where poor and unpaid pensioners were made to travel to Enugu and stand in the sun for hours to be counted, to prove that they were not "ghost" pensioners. Two men died after that. One was a lecturer, the other was an electrician at the university who had often done the electrical work in our house. Yet as our car swerves to avoid the potholes on the road, I think how I love being home. I love this flawed place. I love that this is where my belonging is least contested; this is where I care the deepest.

Adichie's new novel, Half of a Yellow Sun, comes out in the U.S. in the fall.

'Labyrinthine' Assumptions

Every day, I tell myself I won't read the NYT, and, everyday, I succumb to the temptation. In the Books section for example, critic Edward Rothstein delivers a justification for the mass killing of civilians in Lebanon by invoking a "newer form of warfare" that makes it impossible to achieve "separation of army and populace" or "clarity about ultimate responsibility." It is this type of "terror warfare," he claims, that has gotten America in a quagmire in Iraq (and not, as reason or logic would indicate, the invasion itself, which was based on lies and fabrications.)

"Terror warfare," he says, "with its deliberate confusion of categories and identities, is now the rule rather than the exception." And in case you might wonder about the reasoning here, he offers this orientalist explanation:

This may have something to do with the nature of the Middle East itself. The historian Bernard Lewis has pointed out that in Europe nearly every state has a name that is associated with a particular ethnic group and a particular language, a longstanding conjunction of “ethnic, territorial and linguistic nomenclature.” This way of thinking about the state was imposed on the Middle East through imperial power, but as Mr. Lewis points out in his book “The Multiple Identities of the Middle East,” only three countries there — Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Iran — bear any resemblance to the European model. (Israel, with the diverse origins of its Jewish populations, is a more complicated case.)

But, like most orientalist thinking, this is simply not borne out by facts on the ground. The people of Morocco and Algeria (who are, ethnically, a mix of Arab and Berber) have little in common with those of Jordan (a touch of Circassian) or those of Yemen (Afro-Arab and South Asian). The types of Islam practiced are not the same. In Morocco and Algeria, it's Sunni, specifically the Maliki persuasion. In Jordan, it's Sunni, of the Hanafi persuasion. And in Yemen, there are both Sunnis and Shiites. Then you have different religious minorities as well: Jewish in Morocco and Yemen, Christian in Jordan. Lastly, the vernacular forms of Arabic spoken in these countries can sometimes differ so much as to be mutually unintelligible. Now, how is that different from variations one sees in Europe between, say, Scandinavian countries, Balkan countries, and those that border the Mediterranean? But, no, the reader must be told, over and over, that "those people" are different. I don't know why I even bother. After all, it's the Arab/Muslim world. You only need to read some Bernard Lewis and Tom Friedman and you're good to go.

Republic of Lies

Further proof that the Republican war machine is well-oiled: The percentage of Americans who believe that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction has gone up. It went from 36% last year to 50% this year, according to a Harris poll on July 21. When I read something like this, I lose all hope that we're ever going to get out of that God-forsaken mess in Iraq.

August 07, 2006

BBC and OneWord Interviews

When I was in London last month, I was interviewed by Paul Blezard of OneWord Radio about my Caine Prize shortlisted story, "The Fanatic." Now it looks like the conversation is available online.

I also did an interview with Polly de Blank for BBC World Service. You can listen to all the shortlisted writers on the same page, which is pretty cool.

Orner's Second

Peter Orner's debut novel, The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo, is reviewed over at the Star Tribune.

Peter Orner's "The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo" is a departure in two ways. First, anyone who read his exquisite debut collection, "Esther Stories," will be flat-out flabbergasted that he has leapfrogged from urban Jewish Chicago to the veld of Namibia in 1991.

Moreover, this is not a story about Americanness -- or the complicated ways in which a particular kind of white American posture of helping clashes with African ways. Rather, it's a kind of "Winesburg, Ohio" that just happens to be set in the shadow of the Erongo Mountains.

Intrigued? More here.

Greer Wants Another Round

Germaine Greer takes to the 'Comment' blog of The Guardian, trying to defend her earlier statements about Monica Ali's Brick Lane. This is so three minutes ago.

A Letter From Israel

I received this email from MG reader Dalit, who lives in Tel Aviv. I am posting it here, with her permission, followed by some comments.

Dear Laila,

My name is Dalit, I'm an Israeli woman living not far from Tel Aviv. I'm a mother of two children, a high school teacher and a Ph.D. student. My thesis is about Moroccan women. This is how I got to know your blog, I am fascinated by your writing and follow your blog for more than a year. The last days I feel confused and frustrated: This war in Lebanon, stupid as all other wars, is taking the lives of innocent people - young and old, children and mothers, civilians and soldiers. The question I can't find the answer to is "WHY??" Why so much hatred and anger? Why so much destruction? Why the killing?

I lived in Israel almost all my life. I am sorry to say that I can't remember a moment without a fear for my life (or any other lives). We are under a war condition for the last 57 years, threatened by Arab countries and by terror. Can you imagine the feeling sending your kids to school and feering the bus will explode? Going out to dinner knowing the restaurent is a terror target? Losing your freedom in day-to-day life just because human life is not important to a suicide-bomber?? WHY?? Why do I have to feel threatened all the time?? Is it just because Muslim and Arabs (not all of them, I know) think I don't have the right to live here???

This story began more than 50 years ago, when the state of Israel was created. Islamic organizations - Hammas and Hizballah for that matter, and Muslim leaders - Akhmadinajad, Nasrallah and many others, do not recognize our right to exist! Their goal is to destroy "The Zionist Entity", the state of Israel, me and my family. This is the purpose of this war previous ones too.

Watching TV stations and reading newspapers all over the world doesn't give a full picture: They only look for destruction, blood and suffer[ing], without going into a full investigation of the situation. I suggest a reading of Nasrallah's doctrine, the Hammas' treaty and even the Muslim Brothers' treaty. It will give you and idea of their Jihadi goals: the full distruction of Israel and Zionism.

And by the way: I never saw thousands of humanists protesting all over the world when a suiscide-bomber killed 30 people in a hotel in Natanya at Passover night some 4 years ago... or when 23 were killed in a restaurant in Haifa one Saturday at lunch time, or for that matter all those hundreds (!!!) killed in busses. Among them where more than 50% children - Is this not considered Murder? Is it not War Crime?? Where were all of you people then??? Or maybe because we are not Muslims killing us is O.K.? And protesting against violence is only for Muslims or Arab pain? Or maybe not, because I can't remember such eagerness to protest when Muslims where killed in Bosnia, Somalia, Sudan... or non-muslims in Tchad and other places in Africa, India...

I've had enough of wars and human suffering in this area (and all other places too.) Do you really think I'm not intitled to a normal, modern regular life in my own homeland?? I would really like to keep in personal touch with you and have your reaction to my ideas.

Thank you,

Dalit

Dear Dalit,

I want to thank you, very much indeed, for writing in with your thoughts. I am afraid I don't have an answer to the question of Why. There are so many reasons given for this war--retaliation, deterrence, revenge, political advantage. None of these constitutes sufficient justification for all the carnage we have witnessed.

No, I cannot imagine what it is like to live the way that you do. By the same token, however, I cannot pretend to know what it's like to have lost a home in the Nakbah of 1948 and to become a refugee in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon, and elsewhere in the world. I cannot imagine what it's like to be pregnant and die while giving birth at a roadblock. Or what it's like to have to miss my exams and lose a year of schooling because a decision was made by an Israeli general to seal off my town. Or to be blown to smithereens by a 'precision-guided' bomb while having dinner inside my home. Or to have to spend six hours in the dead of heat waiting in line to go through a crossing. Or to be at the mercy of an eighteen-year-old soldier who just arrived in Israel two years before from Russia or Ethiopia or New York, and who now has power over whether or not I can get to work. Or, for that matter, I cannot imagine what it's like to be at the mercy of Egyptian police at the Rafah border crossing, or a Lebanese administrator at refugee camp, or an Arab Israeli contractor at a building site. I cannot imagine what it's like to be a Palestinian, and be at the mercy of all these people. I cannot imagine what it's like to be a prisoner in my own homeland.

I think the vast majority of Muslims and Arabs are far too preoccupied with where their next meal is going to come from to worry about Israel. And yet to read your lines, I get the impression you believe that many Muslims are singly preoccupied with denying Israel's right to exist. But does Israel recognize the right of Palestine to exist? Does public opinion in Israel fully support the creation of a state for Palestinians? In order to integrate and live peacefully among other nations, I think all sides--Palestinians and Israelis--need to recognize that other peoples have the same, inalienable right to self-determination.

Regarding the coverage of the carnage, are you saying that there is a worldwide conspiracy to show only the killing of Lebanese civilians in order to make Israel look bad? But, Dalit, look at the numbers: 508 Lebanese civilians, 46 Hizbollah guerrillas, 26 Lebanese soldiers, 80 Palestinian civilians, 79 Hamas fighters, 36 Israeli soldiers and 19 Israeli civilians. Is it not fair to say that the killing has affected far, far many more Lebanese? So why shouldn't world coverage show the killing of Lebanese civilians? (By the way, here in the States, media coverage has been extremely focused on Israeli suffering. The cover of the New York Times as I type these words, for example, shows Israeli civilians at a shelter in Haifa. Yesterday, it showed Israeli soldiers on patrol. This weekend the NYT magazine will have a piece by Bernard-Henri Levy defending Israel. All this while another 40 Lebanese were killed, in one day. And on and on.) From where I sit, all of this fighting, regardless of what all the parties are saying, will eventually end up in negotiations. So why not stop the killing now and go straight to the negotiating table?

In the early days of MG, I used to occasionally comment on the situation in Israel and the Occupied Territories, but I stopped after a while because it seemed useless. There is an infernal cycle of violence that shows no signs of breaking, and any kind of commentary invariably turns into an arbitration game. I am not King Sulayman. I cannot arbitrate. I was too aggravated to write about the violence, whether it was a suicide bombing or a state bombing. But things reached a boiling point for me with the escalation of last month, and I began once again to write about the conflict.

I think the reason that there has been a worldwide outcry over this particular war--more than others in the past--is that people have not failed to notice the parallels between the war in Iraq and the war in Lebanon. In the case of Iraq, the United States invaded on the pretext that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction; it refused to allow weapons inspectors to do their job; it bombed much of the infrastructure and killed thousands of civilians; and then, after the WMD failed to materialize, got stuck with an insurgency that has turned Islamist, even in a country that was staunchly secular. It did all of this on its own, with support from Britain and Israel, and despite objections from the rest of the world community. The same appears to be happening now with Lebanon. Israel bombed Lebanon and destroyed its infrastructure on the pretext that two soldiers were captured by Hizbullah fighters. This was a relatively small border squirmish, and could have been taken up with Hizbullah, as indeed happened a few years ago. The