Thirsty River by Rodaan Al Galidi, translated by Luzette Strauss
Aflame Books, £8.99
Taxi by Khaled Al Khamissi, translated by Jonathan Wright
Aflame Books, £7.99
Fear of Animals by Enrique Serna, translated by Georgina Jimenez Reynoso
Aflame Books, £8.95
At last, a book about Iraq that manages to extract some humour from Saddam Hussein’s brutal reign. Thirsty River follows the fortunes of the Bird family from Boran in southern Iraq. Over four generations, monsters are spawned, alongside victims and heroes, who entertain, dismay and move in equal measure.
Rodaan Al Galidi has been hailed as the Iraqi Gabriel García Márquez. He possesses a similar gift for storytelling and combines the fantastic with the mundane to tremendous effect. Most of Thirsty River is taken up with vivid descriptions of domestic life in the Bird household that serve to illuminate Iraq’s political past. Saddam Hussein’s rise and fall instils both dread and hope in the various family members. Through their eyes we build up a portrait of a country ravaged by poverty: Rasjad reconciles himself to selling his kidney for love; the loss of Baan’s honour proves her death sentence; and pointless brutality becomes a means of survival. But hope springs eternal – a young boy befriends an American soldier and a sunflower farm planted on a mass grave offers the family salvation.
Al Galidi’s savage satire is shocking and cruel and also profoundly moving. He obviously writes from bitter experience, having fled Iraq in 1998 for political asylum in the Netherlands. Despite writing in Dutch, he retains a uniquely un-Western voice and this is a refreshingly original take on life under a dictatorship as well as a salutary exploration of Iraq’s uneasy relationship with its “liberators” today.
Thirsty River is the most recent offering from Aflame Books who, since 2005, have been publishing fiction and poetry in English in translation from around the world.
Khaled Al Khamissi’s Taxi is another highlight. Based on his own experience of traversing the city, Al Khamissi recreates 58 journeys with the cabbies of Cairo. Through their memories, stories, prejudices, dreams and philosophical musings we are offered a tantalising glimpse of contemporary Egypt. The taxi drivers discourse on a range of subjects from global politics and America’s involvement in Iraq to the social injustices in their own country, offering a fascinating microcosm of city life as well as revealing the conflicting attitudes of the average Egyptian today.
In Fear of Animals, Enrique Serna cleverly juxtaposes the hostility and biting hypocrisy of Mexico’s literati with its corrupt judicial police force to create a terrifying vision of a country riven by mutual distrust and violence.
A former investigative reporter, Evaristo Reyes joins Mexico’s notorious police force believing that his experiences will help him write the definitive book exposing “the high government officials who pulled the strings of corruption…a reportage in the style of Truman Capote that would turn the Mexican political system upside down.” But, all too quickly, he is incriminated for a murder that he did not commit. When Reyes tries to find the culprit from among the capital’s intellectual elite, he finds himself cast into the lion’s den.
In recent years, Mexico’s judicial police has cleaned up its act and – superficially, at least – the privileged literary circle appear a lot more welcoming than the cultural Mafia Serna describes. But the tally of media workers killed with impunity in 2009 alone suggests that a journalist’s life in Mexico continues to be shamelessly devalued.
Aflame Books deserves the highest praise for introducing these exciting new authors to an English-speaking readership. All three explore their countries’ political complexities through personal lives and those who love to read around the world should welcome these unusual and absorbing chronicles of different cultures.
Lucy Popescu
