Yasmina Khadra (Mohamed Moulessehoul)

[Al-khiyal]

A man named Yasmina

[tania_1]

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[Al-khiyal]

Yasmina Khadra is the pseudonym for Mohamed Moulessehoul, a former Algerian army officer who decided to write under his wife's name to avoid army censorship. He was in Sydney last year for the Writers' Festival, at which he spoke about his novel The Swallows of Kabul. It was set in Afghanistan, but he confessed that he had never been there before, and I couldn't help but wonder how he described the land and the atmosphere of oppression.

Reading The Attack, I wondered the same thing. While there is little description of surroundings, and Khadra is a very capable writer, I doubted he had ever been there. This doesn't weaken the book so much as emphasise that his narration is an outsider's voice. This is apt given that his main protagonist, through whom the story is told in first person, behaves very much like a neutral observer in the raging Israeli-Palestinian conflict - that is, until a horrifying event forces painful re-examination.

Dr Amin Jaafari is a Palestinian with Israeli citizenship. He is an incredibly successful surgeon, awarded numerous honours and living a seemingly idyllic life with his beloved wife, Sihem. They have a beautiful house, but no children. They have strong friendships with Israelis, absorbing a lifestyle that rejects a traditional approach; they're not practising Muslims. Amin and Sihem are ostensibly the best examples of integration, and despite some tension in the hospital, Amin is blissfully unaware of differences. If we are to believe him, his wife is generally satisfied too.

For Amin, the conflict is senseless and when long ago forced to pick a side, he chose the side of his "ability", making his convictions his "allies". Such decisions show Amin's character: thirsty for success, respect and to live free of conflict, nothing would stand in his way, especially not bloodshed. "I don't think I ever, not ever once, broke the rules I set for myself", he tells us.

He sees himself as a healer; his role in the conflict is to fix what each side continues to break. As a surgeon, he can be neutral; he is a saviour rather than a killer: "... the only battle I believe in, the only one that really deserves bleeding for, is the battle the surgeon fights, which consists in recreating life in the place where death has chosen to conduct its manoeuvres". He refuses to "support" war and reprisal. He has the ability, he thinks, to choose, naively believing he has chosen neither side.

And then the unimaginable happens. A suicide attack occurs and his wife's body is among the dead. Amin soon finds out that Sihem is identified as the suicide bomber.

Many Palestinians would consider Amin a traitor, and now his Jewish neighbours feel the same about him. He has lost his world, his societal status, but worst of all, his wife - and to a conflict he doesn't want to acknowledge. Amin doesn't recognise his existence: Sihem's act was, for him, personal. He determines to understand how his kind, loving wife could possibly carry out such an attack by setting out to investigate the secret life she lived outside of their marriage.

The reality for Amin, who has lived in a bubble, is more excruciating given his lack of understanding of what is happening around him, his culture and the family he has left behind. He cannot understand that his wife could not live a happy existence while her own people were suffering.

Amin is naive; he saves lives, but he isn't selfless, and he views the conflict in simple terms, even though Khadra attempts to do the opposite. It's a philosophical novel, and what courses through this story most effectively are the futility of war and the impact of stealing life. By the end of The Attack you see that Khadra is attempting to illuminate both sides.

Amin's journey takes the reader through an emotional wasteland, a war-ravaged existence that yearns for recognition and solution. And Amin's complex discoveries force the reader to consider the lost narrative of the Palestinian who has lost his land, his livelihood, and his family.

"We're not Islamists, Dr. Jaafari," one man tells him. "And we're not fundamentalists, either. We are only the children of a ravaged, despised people, fighting with whatever means we can to recover our homeland and our dignity."

Khadra offers very descriptive narrative - the effects of suicide bombing and Israeli revenge attacks, and Amin's confusion and inner turmoil about Sihem's end are all told in, at times, distressing detail. The book is translated from the original French, and retains a lyrical quality, but the prose is, at times, rather purple - Khadra's storytelling, while poetic, sometimes verges on the melodramatic, perhaps something getting lost in translation. But the language is evocative and emotional and certainly colours the horror of the conflict. More importantly, the tone enhances Amin's anguish and the emptiness of those who are victims of the war.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has continued for years, barely pausing for moments of clarity, and refusing to bend to hope for a solution. It's strange then that there isn't more artistic interpretation on the tragic situation. Khadra's exploration is a thoughtful, poignant analysis. It is as heartbreaking and wretched as the conflict itself. The ending will leave you questioning how the oppressed manage to even hold on to their dreams.

Book review: "The Attack"

[liberte]

I've just ordered this book, am really looking forward to reading it, as I thought 'Swallows of Kabul' was excellent, if very very sad.

There's a new book, 'The Sirens of Baghdad', due to be published May 2007:

The narrator of THE SIRENS OF BAGHDAD is a young man from a small desert village who is pulled into the radical insurgency engulfing Iraq. Forced to leave the University of Baghdad when the Americans invade, he has returned to his village where he witnesses three horrifying events that transform him. First, American soldiers at a checkpoint kill the sweet and beloved “village idiot.” Several days later, an American plane bombs a wedding on the outskirts of the village. The most devastating incident takes place in his own home, when soldiers looking for terrorists humiliate his father in full view of the terrified family. Consumed by the desire to avenge this unspeakable act, the young man goes to Baghdad to join the resistance.

Searching for a place to stay in a city going up in flames, the narrator is taken in by a radical group and convinces them that he is willing to do anything to help their cause. After proving his mettle by participating in several attacks, he is sent to Beirut to undertake a super-secret mission which will take him to London. As the time to board the plane nears, the narrator struggles to reconcile the act with his own moral principles.

A masterful and chilling look at violence and its effects on ordinary people, THE SIRENS OF BAGHDAD probes situations few writers dare examine. As powerfully written as Khadra’s previous novels, it explores humanity’s basest acts and shows that even in the most horrific circumstances, the good in human nature can prevail.

Random House | Books | The Sirens of Baghdad by Yasmina Khadra

[chebboutros]

I've read this book by Yasmina Khadra and I found it absolutely amazing. I'm keen on reading authobiographies because it really shows you something about the writer, he/she opens his/her life for you. I loved it and I'd love to read some other titles by him, but it's kind of difficult to get his book here in Mexico, actually it was really surprising to find an Spanish edition of this book in my university's library, I found out that it's not as bad as it seems to be.

[Al-khiyal]

Morituri by Yasmina Khadra

Review by Richard Marcus:

Sometimes you just have to take an author's word for something. Whether it's a subject you know nothing about or a setting you're completely unfamiliar with you put yourself at the mercy of the mind behind the pen and hope he or she is being as accurate as fiction allows.

It becomes especially tricky when you start dealing with a culture that you have no real personal knowledge of, but that everybody in the world seems to have an opinion on. You can't open a paper, a journal, or go online these days without someone, somewhere providing an analysis of the Muslim mind whether they are qualified to or not.

It's hard not to develop a certain amount of prejudice under those circumstances, or at least to develop a picture that is coloured by news reports of suicide bombings and terrorist attacks. How then does one approach novels written about life set in the world which is known to us only through the eyes of reporters and politicians?

What type of glasses will we need to don that will allow us gaze past the web of our preconceived ideas. No matter what our personal sympathies maybe they aren't based on living the life the author has experienced, or the circumstances that characters in his or her book will endure.

Nothing we believe to be true will most likely have any bearing on reality, so the best that we can hope from ourselves is that we are brave enough to surrender to our guide, and to trust that our critical faculties that allow us to hear false notes can cross cultural borders. In other words try not to think of the Pink Elephant that is the cultural difference and read the book for what it is, not what it isn't.

In the case of expatriate Algerian writer Yasmina Khadra's police detective novel Morituri that is both easily accomplished and almost impossible at the same time. First of all Yasmina Khadra is a the pen name for an ex high ranking officer in the Algerian army named Mohammed Moulessehoul who was forced to assume an alias to prevent censorship while living in Algeria.

The fact that in Morituri his chief character is Superintendent Llob of the Algiers's police force is also an author involved in the fight against terrorism does give one pause for thought at Khadra's bias. But that is soon forgotten amidst the depths of the story, and the way in which he is able to entangle you so quickly into Llob's life.

It's open season on Police officers in Algiers as the story begins; the fundamentalists have been picking them off in ones and twos with car bombs and shootings outside of houses. Occasionally there will even be a set up where a tip is called into a station and a group of officers will be ambushed as they arrive to pick up a suspect.

Llob and every other officer have becoming almost terrified of their own shadows. But they aren't the only targets of the latest mullah to command some troops. Somebody is also taking out intellectuals, writers and entertainers. But is it fundamentalists behind these latest attacks, or just someone hiding behind their reputation for attacking those who may be accused of diluting the holy faith.

Superintendent Llob finds himself caught up in a web of intrigue involving the power brokers behind the scenes of Algeria in chaos. Men who think nothing of buying and selling government officials as they need them, are not above using violence if they need it to get the results they want. What can a lowly police officer do in the face of such power?

What they do the world over; investigate and follow leads no matter where they lead. From the homes of nabobs to whorehouses and slums Superintendent Llob follows the trail to the answers. He doesn't care whose toes he steps on as long as he can look at himself in the mirror in the morning, as long as he's alive to look in the mirror of course.

Khandra draws a picture of a country where fundamentalist fanaticism doesn't just apply to the ultra religious, but to all those who strive for power and a larger piece of the action. A small percentage of the people live in high opulence; splendour on par with Kublah Khan, while the rest of the populace huddles at their feet hoping that the scraps left over will be sufficient to live off.

Is it any wonder that the residents of these streets and alleys are susceptible to the promise of something better then what they have, even if it's only in the afterlife? How much different are those promises of paradise from the lead a good life and you'll receive your reward in heaven promise offered on the other side of the world? Manipulation through religion is the same the world over, we just have to be willing to see the similarities in order to recognise that fact.

Morituri is a detective story, with all the characteristics you'd expect in place. Prisoners are interrogated; witnesses are interviewed, and clues are traced to dead ends or unexpected results just like they are in mysteries the world over. But played out against the backdrop of continual violence there is an undercurrent of constant threat that doesn't [materialize?].

In Superindendent Llob, Khadra gives us a character who on one hand is the scared man who checks his car for booby traps and every day spends fifteen minutes looking out his apartment window before risking the walk to where he's parked his car. But once he is on the case he finds within himself the resources to walk into potential ambushes.

Middle aged, with almost adult children, he has seen too much of the world, and suffered along with the rest of Algeria the disappointments of postcolonial rule. But in spite of it all he continues, much as his country men and women do, in the face of adversity to do his job in the hopes it will make a difference, if to no one else at least to himself.

I'm in no position to judge the accuracy of Khadra's description of life in Algeria, but have no reason to doubt the veracity of his information. What I do know for a fact is that this is a well-written and exciting novel I can easily recommend to those who like a lot of grit in their mysteries. And in spite of any cultural differences that's all that really matters anyway.

[Al-khiyal]

Double Blank, by Yasmina Khadra

Review by Richard Marcus:

At the end of Yasmina Khadra's first Superintendent Llob novel Morituri we had left him contemplating the depths that some business people would go to in Algeria to make their personal empires grow. From bribery to faked terrorist campaigns against intellectuals and entertainers (Faked only in the sense that fundamentalist Islamic were not behind them, the killings were real enough) it didn't seem as if there was anything they wouldn't consider.

As readers we had been introduced to a world that was completely beyond our comprehension. A country that is at war with itself, a war that escalates on a daily basis with bombings and killings by any number of either terror groups or factions of the elites involved in their endless power struggles.

Caught horribly in the middle, with almost no power to touch anyone above them on the social ladder even if they catch them with blood on their hands, the police fight back with what ever weapons they have at their disposal. It's not police or detective work like we are used to with the deductive reasoning of little grey cells, or the careful compilation of evidence to be used in court.

Sometimes it's a matter of following the trail of corpses and seeing whose doorstep it leads you to. Other times it's a matter of pushing harder then you are being pushed and hoping the other guy snaps before you do. Llob manages to get results using both methods, but little pieces of him are dying every day.

But sometimes when it is a matter of either little pieces or you dying literally your choices are limited. But Llob does his best and manages to be able to look at himself in the mirror still. He ruffles as many feathers as he possibly can in order to keep their owners as honest as possible, but when most of those consider themselves, for good reason, untouchable enough to have police bodily removed from their premises as a nuisance, you know at best you're fighting a holding action.

In Double Blank Khadra's (Yasmina Khadra is the pen name of Mohammed Moulessehoul, a former high ranking officer in the Algerian army turned novelist) second Superintendent Llob mystery, it's Llob's reputation for being a good cop, and a writer that find him in the presence of one of the elites of Algerian life. What Ben Ouda, former diplomat, and one time hero to a younger Llob, wants with him now remains just as unclear and nebulous after a requested meeting, as before.

But somebody must have understood what it was all about, and what was so important about the computer diskette that Ben Ouda claimed would have all the information Llob needed to write a truly historical novel. For only hours after Llob's meeting with Ouda not only has he been separated from the computer diskette but his head seems to have ended up in the bidet without the rest of his body.

Once more Llob has to walk the path of least resistance among captains of industry, petty thieves, and potential fundamentalist terrorists. The irony of how both the fundamentalists and the wealthy both claim all they do is for the good of Algeria is not lost on Llob. Nor is it lost that in both instances neither seems to mind if there has to be some violence and death along the way. One justifies it as the will of God, and the other calls it the forces of the marketplace or a necessary adjustment.

Even though there is an obvious connection between the murder and a known terrorist cell, Llob begins to suspect some hand even further behind the scenes manipulating events. Each time he closes in on one of the terrorists it's only to find him dead before he gets there.

When the last of them forces one of Llobs men to kill him, to prevent him from triggering his booby trapped body and wiping out a neighbourhood in the city, it looks as if the case will be without a satisfying resolution. Somebody else had wanted to be rid of the assassins even more urgently than the police, and unless they found out who or what, the real reason for Ben Ouda's death would always remain a mystery.

What was on that mysterious diskette that made so many lives expendable? That is the question that plagues Llob as he continues to try and find the missing pieces that will complete the puzzle. Both the wealthy in their enclaves and the fundamentalists with their black and white view of the world scare and disgust him in equal parts but the answer lies somewhere in one of those worlds.

In Double Blank we learn a little more about the past of our hero, and begin to understand how he came to being a policeman. He started his life under colonial rule only to see it replaced by a dictator. Hope was born when the dictator was toppled, but it was short lived as the bottom feeders quickly rose to the surface to begin feeding off the bones of the picked over country to get the last pieces of flesh for themselves.

They might have called it revitalizing the economy, but Llob looking around at how they live compared to everyone else has some pretty strong doubts about their altruism and heroism. The hope that was born with the fall of the dictator has been chewed away by the vultures picking at the bones as he sees the resulting anger and fatalism in the people around him.

Once more Kahadra paints a picture of a city on the verge of combustion and a country on the edge of self-immolation. The people of Algeria may not be able to survive the efforts of those intent on saving either their souls or their economy and the best they can do is try and hold on and weather the storm.

Double Blank is not only a great mystery story, it is also a vivid portrait of a country struggling to stay away from the madness that has affected so many other nations in their part of the world. Read Yasmina Khadra's books for the story, but read them as well for the glimpses they offer of life in a world we know so little about.