Tag: Actes Sud

Helene Frappat ‘Three women disappear’

Working Girl is the story of a girl that lives in the suburbs. She would like not to have to undress to be loved and to have a career. When a supposed job interview develops into an attempted rape, she escapes from the car in her high heels and tights. ***

The subject of this book, my second read for the Roman de Rochefort 2023, is well researched and of particular interest, concerning a mother who’s name is “little girl”, her daughter and her grand-daughter, three well known Hollywood actresses whose lives are echos of the grandmother. All three disappear from the screen at the height of their fame, Tippi Hedren, Melanie Griffith and Dakota Johnson.

This is not an easy read, the style is wilfully fragmented with sometimes seven or eight paragraphs per page which, at least for me, distracted from the subject matter and diluted the message.

In the amazing backwards and forwards of facts presented, here are a few; Hitchcock’s abusive control of Tippi, leading to an event from her memoirs where she escapes from him in a manner echoed by the opening quote concerning her daughter in Working Girl, or the fact that Melanie was the name of the woman attacked by the birds that Tippi played whilst being controlled by Hitchcock. And then there is Dakota and the Fifty Shades of Grey, which under the saccharine cover of SM is yet again a woman in an abusive relationship.

My second paragraph explains why this will not be my choice, but once again the subject matter is rich.

First published in French by Actes Sud in 2023 as ‘Trois Femmes Disparaissent’

*** my translation

The quotes as read in French before translation

Working Girl est l’histoire d’une banlieusarde qui a froid. Elle aimerait bien ne pas devoir se déshabiller pour être aimée et faire carrière. Quand un prétendu entretien d’embauche se transforme en tentative de viol, elle s’échappe de la limousine, en escarpins et collants voile.

Metin Arditi ‘Le Turquetto’

Stood up, his right hand grasping his cane, the master was unable to tear his eyes away from the canvas. He had before him the most beautiful portrait that had ever been painted. The lines were of an absolute precision. And the colours…. How had he managed to obtain such nuances in the darker colours? There was the young man’s look, the beauty of his age, a charm, but a force as well, a kindness…. He moved forward towards the painting looking for the signature. He couldn’t find it. His eyesight weakened…. He tried again three times and finally found it, in the lower right hand corner, a capital T, painted in dark grey.img_3098
He stepped back from the painting and once more took it in slowly. What he needed to do to save it was shameful. and even obscene. But there was no other solution but this, and he did his duty.***

Welcome to Metin Arditi’s art world, in this work of fiction Arditi begins with a chromographic examination report leaving some doubt as to whether the work, “Man With A Glove” from the Louvre was actually by Titien, leading him to create the character the Turquetto, who had actually painted this work, and why there is no other trace of Turquetto’s work, taking us right up to the terrible decision by Titien himself to add his signature to the painting as illustrated in the opening quote.

The book written in three parts takes us from sixteenth century Constantinople, with its varied population of Turks, Jews, Greeks and Armenians, each with their own religions and very different rights but all having one thing in common, reproducing any of God’s creation is forbidden. Elie a young jewish child who had been brought up in a greek family and who moves easily amongst the Turkish merchants eventually escapes to venice and on the journey takes a Greek name, becoming a christian overnight.

In the second part of the book in Venice, due to heis natural skill but also due to his mixed cultural experience he becomes a painter of great renown, but as he matures, he finds he no longer wants to hide who he really and eventually falls foul of the inquisition, finally escaping and returning to Constantinople where things are becoming more difficult for the Greeks and the Jews.

This is a fascinating story as Arditi draws us a picture of the sixteenth century world and the inability of the different people to live with each other, any resemblance with what is happening around us today is purely coincidental!

First Published in French as “Le Turquetto” in 2011 by Actes Sud
*** my translation

The quotes as read in French before translation

Debout, la main droite agrippée à sa canne, le maitre n’arrivait pas à détacher ses yeux de la toile. il avait devant lui le plus beau portrait qui ait jamais été peint. Un trait d’une précision absolue. Et des couleurs… Comment avait-il réussi à obtenir de telles nuances dans les sombres? Il y avait dans le regard du jeune homme la beauté de son âge, un charme, mais aussi une force, une bonté….
Il s’approcha du tableau et chercha la signature. Il ne la trouva pas. Ses yeux déclinaient…. Il s’y reprit à trois fois et fini par la répérer, au coin inférieur droit, un T majuscule, peint en gris foncé.
Il s’éloigna de la toile et une fois encore la regarda longuement. Ce qu’il devait faire pour la sauver était indigne. Et même obscène. Mais il n’y avait d’autre solution que celle-là, et il fit son devoir.

Abby Geni ‘The Lightkeepers’

All the biologists had seasons in which they could focus on their areas of expertise (when their animals ruled the roost) and seasons when they were required to help the others (when their animals were absent). During the summer, Forest, the shark specialist, had been in command.
He and Galen had given orders, and everyone else had jumped to obey. But autumn had brought the whales, and winter would give way to Seal Season, which would be followed by Bird Season. Each biologist had a moment in the sun. This was Mick’s time to shine.

This book, my fourth read for the Prix du Roman de Rochefort 2021, and my first by Abby Geni. Miranda, a photographer chooses to come to the Farradon islands, off of the Californian coast for a year, we quickly learn that these inhospitible Islands, where the presence of a few biologists are rythmed by the seasons as explained in the opening quote.

Miranda lives in a world of quiet violence, writing letters she never that can never. arrive to her mother, trying to cauterise a wound from her youth that has seen her wandering the planet taking pictures in dangerous places, never coming closer to solving her internal torments:

I understand now why I first voyaged here. It has taken me all year to come to terms with that choice. Since your death, I have been looking over my shoulder, looking backward. I have been stuck in time. I have been writing letters to you—letters to no one, a body in a cemetery, a woman I knew for only a small part of my life. Hundreds of notes, some sitting in the Dead Letter Office of various cities, others buried and burned and scattered on the wind. I have never once questioned whether writing them was sane or healthy. Now, though, I can see that it was neither. Each letter has been an anchor chain, dragging me back into the past.

The Island itself is full of natural violence amongst the animals, some on a par with violence she has seen in war zones with the act of photography itself described by Abby Geni and practised by Melanie as violence itself:

There is a wonderful violence to the act of photography. The camera is a potent thing, slicing an image away from the landscape and pinning it to a sheet of film. When I choose a segment of horizon to capture, I might as well be an elephant seal hunting an octopus. The shutter clicks. Every boulder, wave, and curl of cloud included in the snapshot is severed irrevocably from what is not included. The frame is as sharp as a knife. The image is ripped from the surface of the world.

Miranda discovers violence herself at the hands of one of the biologists that rapes her leaving her unable to talk about it. Then the rapist is found dead at the bottom of some cliffs and after a police investigation no one is suspected and an accidental death assumed, but the experienced, quiet biologist Galen has been studying the people around him and by analogy realises what has happened:

Galen has had some experience with this phenomenon. The animal mind is one without memory. He has researched it. Most animals are able to recall the short term—the past few seconds or minutes—but anything further back is released from the brain like a balloon on the breeze. Animals retain impressions, rather than stories. They may avoid a dangerous place by instinct. They may shy away from an object that is associated with trauma. But they do not recall specific events. A shark, having devoured a seal, will swim away with a clean conscience, no echo of blood or pain. A gull might kill its own chick in a fit of fury, then mourn when discovering the little body later, unaware of its own guilt, lost in its own forgetting.

No spoiler of course, except inferred, this was a complex, well written parallel study of human and animal life. Well worth the read.

First Published in english as “The Lightkeepers” in 2016, by Counterpoint
Translated into french by Céline Leroy and published as “Farallon Islands” by Actes Sud in 2017

The quotes in French.

Chaque biologiste avait une saison durant laquelle se concentrer sur son domaine de compétence (quand son animal régnait sur les lieux) et celles où il ou elle devait aider ses collègues (quand son animal était absent). L’été, Forest, le spécialiste des requins,était au poste de commandement. Galen et lui lançaient leurs ordres et nous autres nous empressions d’obéir. Mais l’automne avait vu le retour des baleines, et l’hiver laissait place à la saison des phoques qui serait suivie par la saison des oiseaux. Chaque biologiste avait droit à son quart d’heure de gloire. C’était le moment pour Mick de faire des étincelles.

Aujourd’hui, je comprends enfin pourquoi je suis venue jusqu’ici. Il m’a fallu un an pour accepter la raison de ce choix. Depuis ta mort, je passe mon temps à regarder par-dessus mon épaule, à jamais tournée vers le passé. J’ai écrit des lettres — sans autre destinataire qu’un corps dans un cimetière, une femme que je n’ai connue que quelques années. Des centaines de mots dont certaines de mots dont certain prennent la poussière au Bureau des lettres mortes ici et là, d’autres enfouis, brulés ou emportés par le vent. Pas une fois je ne me suis demandé si les écrire était sain ou raisonnable. Maintenant je sais que ça n’était ni l’un ni l’autre. Chaque lettre était une ancre qui me ramenait vers le passé.

L’acte photographique renferme une merveilleuse violence. Ce mécanisme est puissant, qui retranche une image d’un paysage pour la fixer sur un morceau de pellicule. Quand je choisi un segment d’horizon à prendre, je pourrais tout aussi bien être un éléphant de mer en train de chasser un poulpe. L’obturateur émet un déclic. Chaque rocher, vague et volute nuageuse qui entre dans l’image est arraché irrémédiablement à ce qui n’y entre pas. Le cadre est affûté comme un couteau. L’image est arrachée à la face du monde.

Ce phénomène ne lui était pas inconnu. Les animaux n’ont pas de mémoire. Il avait fait des recherches. La plupart des espèces animale n’ont qu’une mémoire à court terme — sur quelques secondes ou minutes — et au-dela. tout leur échappe comme un ballon de baudruche emporté par le vent. Les animaux retiennent des impressions plutôt que des histoires. Leur instinct peut les pousser à eviter un endroit dangereux. Ils peuvent s’éloigner d’un objet associé à un traumatisme. Mais ils n’ont pas de souvenir détaillé des évènements. Un requin qui vient de dévorer un phoque s’éloignera la conscience tranqille, sans souvenir du sang ou de la douleur. Un goéland peut tuer son petit dans un accès de rage puis en faire le deuil après avoir découvert son cadavre, ignorant tout de sa culpabilité, perdu dans son oubli.

Javier Cercas ‘Terra Alta’

“I’m sorry mate”, said his colleague. “My son broke his finger playing handball”.
“No problem” Melchior reassured him as he did up his safety belt. “I listened to a bunch of old people to pass the time”.
“I’ll bet all they talked about was the war”.
Melchor turned towards him.img_2777“How did you know”?
“Don’t talk rubbish”, said Sirvent.
“Here, the old folks don’t talk about anything else. As if nothing else has happened here in Terra Alta in the last 80 years”.***

This book, my third read for the Prix du Roman de Rochefort 2021, and my second by Javier cercas after ‘Outlaws‘ follows the main protagonist Melchor, who identifies his life with Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables and in particular, not to Jean Valjean but to Javert. Not the man who must choose between “Staying in heaven and becoming a demon or going back into hell and becoming an angel” but “the pretend bad guy, and pretend bad guys are the real good guys”. He even names his daughter Cosette.

Just for a change(heavy sarchasm) the story follows two distinct time lines, the present in Terra Alta and the past which has moulded Melchor. In the present, the story begins with an atrocious murder, the owner of the largest company in the area, Francisco Addel and his wife are sadistically tortured to death in their home, enough to shock the police at the death scene as illustrated below. In Terra Alta everyone knows everyone and the enquiry soon becomes bogged down and the task force eventually gets re-deployed. In the second time line we learn that Melchor much like Jean Valjean has been in prison and then with false paperwork was able to become a policeman, following a shooting incident where Melchor puts to good use the training he had working for a Cartel, he shoots dead four terrorists, making him famous, the police who had begun to realise his paperwork was suspect ensure his legitimacy and send him into the isolated Terra Alta until things quieten down.

Goma watches them all for a moment then points to a puddle of sticky stuff on the floor.
“Can anybody explain to me what this is”?
“The patrolman who came in with me vomitted”, Melchor answers.
“He wasn’t the only one”, adds deputy inspector Barrera. “Except that the others were more discreet”.***

This is a story of meanness, of cupidity and of revenge. And what if Javert once again had to choose, would he arrest the killer or let him go? throw into the cauldron the murder of Melchor’s wife.

Cercas keeps our attention and leaves enough doubt about Melchor’s choices.

First Published in spanish as “Terra Alta” in 2021, by Booket
Translated into french by Aleksandar Grujicic and Karine Louesdon and published as “Terra Alta” by Actes Sud in 2021
*** my translation

The quotes as read in French before translation

—Je suis désolé, mec, dit son collègue. Mon fils s’est cassé un doigt en jouant au hand.
—Pas de souci, le rassura Melchor en bouclant sa ceinture de sécurité. J’ai écouté un groupe de vieux, ça m’a fait passer le temps.
—Je parie qu’ils parlaient de la guerre.
Melchor se tourna vers lui.
—Comment tu sais ça?
—Arrête tes conneries, dit Sirvent. Ici, les vieux ne parlent que de ça. Comme s’il ne s’était rien passé en Terra Alta ces quatre-vingts dernières années.

Goma reste un moment à les observer puis montre du doit une flaque d’une matière pâteuse qui souille le sol.
—Quelqu’un pourrait m’expliquer ce que c’est?
—Le patrouilleur qui est entré avec moi a vomi, répond Melchor.
—Il n’a pas été le seul, ajoute le sous-inspecteur Barrera. Sauf que les autres ont été plus discrets.

Juli Zeh ‘New Year’

From his youngest age, Henning had become used to considering everything he did, said or even thought as an attack on his mother’s happiness. He often regretted being alive.***

As the book starts, Henning is on holiday with his family in Lanzerote. We’ve all been on these holidays, on one side of the divide or another where you just have to get away from the people you came with, to get some fresh air, to calm down or whatever. Henning without thinking too much about it gets on his bike and starts peddling outside of their rental, he doesn’t take anything with him, such as water or whatever and heads uphill. This is Lanzerote hot even in the winter, and when you set off uphill, well it just keeps going up. Henning is young still and needs to use up energy. Young children can be so frustrating, his wife isn’t happy having Hennings sister staying at theirs whilst they are away, keep peddling!

As he eventually runs out of steam and just makes it to the top he feels foolish not having any water and stops to knock on an isolated door to ask for some. Then something strange happens to him, he slowly recognises this house and deep seated memories come back to him, he is a child and slowly an event no body has ever spoken to him about comes back to him:

The next morning mum and dad are no longer there. When Henning gets up, Luna is still asleep. He crosses the corridors which, in the light of day have found their normal size, and the main room bathed in sun. As often at this time of day, the wooden door is open to let in the cool breeze. Henning continues through to the kitchen – in the morning there is a sweet smell with a bitter trace of coffee, and mum is usually washing plates in the sink or laying out the crockery on a tray for breakfast. But there is nobody in the kitchen, he can smell nothing. When this happens his parents or on the patio. Henning walks back across the main room his naked feet going flip flop on the cold tiles. He walks outside through the wooden door it’s very hot and the light is blinding. He walks around the edge of the patio, one edge of which is protected from the wind by a wall and from the sun by a wooden roof where there is a large table with stone benches, that’s where they usually have breakfast. The table is empty. No sign of mum or dad.***

He and his baby sister were found abandoned after several days alone in the house, a harrowing experience that has and still unbeknown to him effects his life today, his feelings for his mother well up in him, epitomised by the opening quote.

This experience brings him to speak to his mother, why had she never mentioned this? And to begin to understand the mess his sister’s life has become and that he must stop protecting her at last if she is to flourish.

As good as ever from Juli Zeh, why she is translated so little into english beats me.

First Published in german as “Neue Jahr” in 2018, by Random House
Translated into french by Rose Labourie and published as “Nouvel An” by Actes Sud in 2019
*** my translation

The quotes as read in French before translation

Dès son plus jeune âge, Henning avait pris l’habitude de considérer tout ce qu’il faisait, disait ou seulement pensait comme une atteinte au bonheur de sa mère. Il regrettait souvent d’être en vie.

Le lendemain matin, papa et maman ne sont plus là. Quand Henning se lève, Luna dort encore. Il traverse les couloirs qui, à la lumière du matin, ont retrouvé leur taille normale, et la grande salle baignée de soleil. Comme souvent à cette heure de la journée, la porte en bois est ouverte pour laisser entrer l’air frais. Henning continue jusqu’à la cuisine – le matin, il y a une odeur de sucré avec des traces amères de café, et maman est généralement en train de laver des assiettes dans l’évier ou de disposer la vaisselle du petit-déjeuner sur un plateau. Mais à la cuisine, il n’y a personne, ça ne sent rien. Dans ce cas, c’est que les parents sont sur la terrasse. Henning retraverse la grande salle, ses pieds nus font floc-floc sur les dalles froides. Il franchit la porte en bois et se retrouve dehors, il fait très chaud et la lumière est aveuglante. Il longe le parapet de la terrasse, dont une des extrémités est protégée du vent par un mur et du soleil par un toit en bois. Une grande table avec des bancs en pierre y est installée, c’est là qu’ils prennent d’habitude leur petit-déjeuner. La table est vide. Pas de trace de papa et maman.

Éric Vuillard ‘The War of the Poor’

Booker International Prize 2020: 6 Books shortlisted for this prize.
“The War of the Poor”: In order of reading book number 6.

Because the powerful never give up anything, neither bread nor freedom. It is then at that moment that he utters before them his most terrible words. Before the Crown Prince, Duke John, the Bailiff Zeus, the Mayor and Council of Allstedt, after the sword, the poor, Nebuchadnezzar, and the wrath of God, now Müntzer says: death to impious Monarchs.***

This is the story of the poor and their little known rebellions, first of all in England in the 14th century, of John Wyclif who proned translating the bible into the language of the people, who would then have a direct relationship with God and would not need the corrupt clergy, this of course was not a popular idea amongst the rich. After his death one of his disciples, John Ball fomented a peasants revolt due in part to over taxation which was then carried forward by Watt Tyler who marched on London with upwards of 60000 peasants who looted and beheaded judges. The peasants wern’t really prepared, and when the tide turned tens of thousands were put to the sword.

In the next century came the printing press and the bible was then printed in the language of the people. The revolt then flairs up in Germany lead by Thomas Müntzer who goes further than Luther:

His mass in German raised an outcry. People came from all around Allstedt to listen to the word of God, crowds gathered to hear a priest speak to them, for the first time, in their own language. In the church in Allsttedt, God spoke German.***

Müntzer was full of a vindictive rage against the corrupt Clergy and the ruling classes stirring up the people as part if the great peasant uprising of the early 16th century. Where once again up to 100000 of the the poorly prepared people were slaughtered by the arisocrats armies.

This all too short a book, only 46 pages, only scratched the surface of a passionate subject, of these two interesting excerpts of history.

First Published in French as “La guerre des pauvres” in 2019 by Actes Sud.
Translated into English by Mark Polizzotti and published as The War of the Poor by Other Press in 2020
*** My translation

The quotes as read in French before translation

Car les puissants ne cèdent jamais rien, ni le pain ni la liberté. Et c’est à ce moment qu’il prononce devant eux sa plus terrible parole. Devant le duc Jean, le prince héritier, le bailli Zeiss, le bourgmestre et le conseil d’Allstedt, après le glaive, les pauvres, Nabuchodonosor et la colère de Dieu, voici que Müntzer dit: il faut tuer les souverains impies.

Il va plus loin que Luther. Sa messe en allemand soulève un tollé. Les gens viennent des alentours d’Allstedt écouter la parole de Dieu, des foules se déplacent pour entendre un prêtre s’adresser à eux pour la première fois dans leur langue. Dans l’église d’Allstedt, Dieu parle allemand.

Daniel Kehlmann ‘Tyll‘

Booker International Prize 2020: 6 Books shortlisted for this prize.

1. “Tyll”: In order of reading book number 1.

I don’t normally follow this prize in detail but I end up reading some of the shortlisted books, since, due to the confinement, the award has been delayed and I’m into my third book of the six, I thought here goes
In order to follow this event, hopefully I’ll manage to write articles on all six of the short listed books and propose my winner before the official announcement.

Visit the official site for more details: Booker International Prize 2020

Tyll Ulenspiegel… sang a mocking ballad about the poor, stupid Winter King, the Elector Palatine, who had thought he could defeat the Kaiser and accept Prague’s crown from the Protestants, yet his kingship had melted away even before the snow. He sang about the Kaiser too, who was always cold from praying, the little man trembling before the Swedes in the imperial palace in Vienna, and then he sang about the King of Sweden, the Lion of Midnight, strong as a bear, but of what use had it been to him against the bullets in Lützen that took his life like that of any mere soldier, and out was your light, and gone the little royal soul, gone the lion! Tyll Ulenspiegel laughed, and we laughed too, because you couldn’t resist him and because it did us good to remember that these great men were dead and we were still alive, and then he sang about the King of Spain with his bulging lower lip, who believed he ruled the world even though he was broke as a chicken.

Daniel Kehlmann’s latest novel places the legend of Tyll in the Europe’s thirty years war where some estimates suggest up to fifty percent of the population of Germany succumbed to war and it’s byproducts famine and disease. The book is organised into separate stories involving the jester Tyll and the events of this complex war of the early seventeenth century. As the book begins, near the end of the war, Tyll arrives in a village of about one hundred people, so far spared by the war and amongst juggling, theatre and tightrope walking he tells the story of the war so far as in the opening quote in a language that would be easily understood by the people at the time and is at the same time a prologue to the book we are about to discover.

We move back to Tyll’s youth and one of the events this war for control of Europe between the Habsburgs, catholics and the Lutherians and Calvinists becomes known for. A previous peace treaty had set that if the ruler of one of the areas in the contested parts of Germany should be of a religion, or convert then everyone under his rule should be of the same religion. Thus when two Jesuits arrived in their village at the behest of the ruler, Kehlmann uses the individual story as an illustration of the global situation as Tyll’s father is tried for witchcraft, with the full use of torture and the Jesuit’s reasoned explanation for their “fair” trial.

Tyll lives through a number of events, becoming the Jester to the Calvinist Winter King, Frederick V, whose reclamation of the kingdom of Bohemia was the event which started the war and who had been deposed after one winter. Frederick was married to Elizabeth Stuart and it is through her, years later that we visit the peace conference, a surreal process where none of the key protagonists were allowed to be present and their negotiators had little or no power to come to agreements.

On the road with Tyll we see the brutality and filth of this war with camps of one hundred thousand soldiers but no latrines, of the intervention of the king of Sweden on the Protestant side and eventually the intervention in the war of France, against the Habsburgs, and thus on the Protestant side.

If you know nothing of this period of history, and here I hold my hand up, this is a fascinating way of discovering it

First Published in German as “Tyll” in 2017 by Rowohlt. Translated into English by Ross Benjamin and published in 2020 as Tyll by Pantheon. Translated into French by Juliette Aubert and published in 2020 as “Le Roman de Tyll Ulespiègle” by Actes Sud

Alaa El Aswany ‘j’ai couru vers le Nil’

—You know, I deserve a citation of excellence , but of course they are only open to sons of paschas.
His father did’t understand and Khaled explained to him that the university administration awarded citations of excellence to children of the teaching staff and to those of high officials in order to ensure their nomination as assistants. This angered Madani.
—But this is unjust.
—But of course it’s unjust
—you must lodge a complaint.
Khaled broke out laughing:
—What complaint? Haj Madani. We’re in Egypt. injustice is the rule.***

This is El Aswany’s novel treating the Egyptian spring, how the revolution came to remove Mubarak and how the military were able to stop the threatened revolution and to keep power, with the will of the people. This book is still banned in Egypt and when you read it you will understand why. The book begins with the movement in Tahrir Square already underway and treats a microcosm of Egyptian society. There are two students, Khaled the son of a chauffeur who explains to his father in the opening quote how the system is stacked against him and Dania the free thinking daughter of the head of state security, general Alouani. The following conversation between Dania and her father shows how an age old religion, here Islam, can be interpreted to justify almost anything as she has been protesting for justice for a dead protestor:

—We ask that his assassins are brought to justice.
—Who is we?
—My fellow students from university and I.
—I don’t understand are you a lawyer or a law student?
—I’m a muslim
—We’re all muslims
—Islam requires us to defend what is just.
—Islam says that sedition is worst than murder.
—Islam sanctifies man and forbids humiliation and torture.
—These are the words of human rights groups payed for by the european union. Who told you that Islam forbids torture? the lash, stoning, hands cut off, these aren’t torture? Islam permits torture of certain individuals and even killing them to ensure the stability of a country. Have you heard of taazir? According to taazir he who governs has the right to judge alone a crime and to decide on the accused’s punishment.***

This book is told through the stories these and of the other members of this microcosm, Asma a teacher, Mazen a unionist, Aschraf a rich Copt and his servant Akram as well as Nourhane a television presenter. We learn of the extreme violence of the army against their own people, including murders, torture and running over protestors at speed in narrow streets with their tanks, of the enforced and humiliating virginity tests carried out on the female protestors with soldiers watching on, these told through individual testimonies.

We are told of how State security, organises for rich private Egyptians within the media to set up a successful smear campaign against the young protestors persuading the average Egyptian that their is a plot against order and the army, financed from abroad, as in this excerpt concerning Nourhane:

Every evening the Egyptians watch Nourhane. She invites university professors, intellectuals, specialists in strategic affairs. All confirm with proof that the Egyptian revolution had only ever been a conspiracy financed and planned by the American secret services and their counterparts in Mossad. Each time, you could read the emotion on Nourhane’s beautiful face as she ended her program calling the almighty in a humble voice as the camera gives a closeup of her face:
—Oh God, make Egypt safe and free her from traitors and those that wish her ill.***

This is a deeply disturbing book mixing manipulation with religion and the underlying influence of Wahabism, the power of the rich arab states, to explain how Egypt’s present day has been shaped. I suspect this book is not going to be available in Egypt in the forseeable future.

First Published in Arabic as “Al-Joumhouriyya Ka’anna” in 2018 by Dar Al-Adab
Translated into french byGilles Gauthier and published by Actes Sud in 2018
*** my translation

The quotes as read in French before translation

—Nous demandons que ses assassins soient soumis à un proces juste.
—C’est qui, vous?
—Mes condisciples de l’université et moi.
—Je ne comprends pas: tu es avocate ou étudiante en droit?
—Je suis musulmane
—Nous sommes tous musulmans
—L’islam nous ordonne de défendre ce qui est juste.
—L’islam dit que la sédition est pire que le meurtre.
—L’islam a sanctifié l’homme et interdit de l’humilier et de le torturer.
—Ce sont là les propos des associations des droits de l’homme financés par l’Union européenne. Qui t’as dit que L’Islam interdit la torture? Le fouet, la lapidation, les mains coupées ne sont ils pas des torture? L’islam permet de torturer certains individus, et même de les tuer pour assurer la stabilité du pays. As–tu entendu parler du taazir? Selon le taazir, celui qui gouverne à le droit de juger seul le crime et de décider du châtiment de l’accusé.

—Tu sais, je mérite une mention d’excellence mais, bien sûr, elle est réservée aux fils de Pacha
Son père ne comprenait pas et Khaled lui expliqua que l’administration de la faculté accordait la mention d’excellence aux enfants des professeurs et des hauts responsables, de façon à assurer leur nomination comme assistants. Cela mit Madani en colère.
—Mais c’est une injustice.
—Bien sûr que c’est une injustice.
—Il faut que tu déposes plainte.
Khaled éclata de rire:
—Quelle plainte? Hadj Madani. Nous sommes en Égypte. L’injustice est la règle.

Tous les soirs les Égyptiens regardaient Nourhane. Elle invitait des professeurs d’université, des penseurs, des spécialistes des affaires stratégiques. Tous confirmaient avec preuves à l’appui que la révolution en Égypte n’avait été qu’un complot financé et planifié par les services secrets américains aidés par leurs confrères israéliens du Mossad. Chaque fois, l’émotion se lisait sur le beau visage de Nourhane, qui terminait son émission par une invocation qu’elle prononçait d’une voix humble tandis que la caméra faisait un gros plan sur son visage:
—Mon Dieu, donne la sécurité à l’Égypte et délivre-la des traîtres et de ceux qui lui veulent du mal.

Juli Zeh ‘Unterleuten’

“The land rent for ten wind turbines is fifty thousand euros a year. You work it out for a hundred turbines. Just to see what sort of a retirement that pays.”….
“Gombrowski’s going to wind up Ökologica. He doesn’t need it any more. Finished, over.”
The effect was immediate. Kron cut short all muttering with a movement of his hand.
“Think a bit. Ökologica hasn’t been profitable in a long time. Why is Gombrowski so set on the wind park? To pay himself a tidy pension.”
This time he let them mutter. Except for Ulrich, they all had family that worked at Ökologica: daughters, nephews, sons and sons in law; Björn’s grand-daughter had just begun an apprenticeship in agronomy. In Unterleuten to lose your job was the equivalent of a professional death sentence.***

Juli Zeh takes the time to set the scene in this delicious rural thriller, where the events that take place are blurred by the form, they are seen from the viewpoints of each of the many protagonists living in the village of Unterleuten in Brandebourg about fifty kilometres from Berlin, there are no truths only different perspectives. There are the new arrivals, moving in from the city and the villagers who have lived the tumultuous times of the twentieth century, the disenfranchisement of the land owners, the collectivisation of the land followed by targets set in Berlin that didn’t take account of the seasons and the capability of the land, the flight of villagers to the West, The Stasi’s spying of the people, the wall falling and coming to terms with Capitalism. The villagers all know each other or are related and old contentions run deep. Each of the protagonists, as the events unfold, is persuaded to be acting justly as the village’s fine balance is knocked out of equilibrium.

There is the mayor, Arne Seidel, who best represents the arbitrariness of the past fifty years, once the vet trained in The DDR, but whose training was no longer recognised after re-unification. Arne is then left a broken man when his beloved wife dies of a short illness only to discover that she had been a Stasi informer, writing page after page about him every week, before he is then coaxed by Rudolph Gombrowski into becoming Mayor.

There are the two long term enemies, Kron, a one time convinced communist who regrets the passing of the DDR and the privatisation of the collective farm, and whose wife ran away to the West years during the Cold War leaving him with a young daughter to bring up. There is Gombrowski the man who had taken the collective farm in hand after unification and created a private company, guaranteeing employment for a large part of the the local population but making himself rich at the same time. We soon learn that problems are handled locally without outside interference, police or lawyers as opposed to the West, Gombrowski and Kron had opposed each other as Gombrowski tried to take over the collective farm and had a meeting in the forest during a storm from which one person died and Kron suffered broken legs as Gombrowski was then able to take over the farm. But what really happened that day? Whose interest is it to leave a doubt?

For many years Seidel and Gombrowski have acted in tandem, both believing this is the best for the community with the excesses from Gombrowski’s company Ökologica GmbH, more or less subsidising the village.

Then there are the newcomers, of which two stand out, the highly manipulative, stop at nothing Linda Franzen, who wants to set up a ranch for sick horses but needs money and land, and there is “The Bird Protector”, Gerhard Fließ, who wants to restrict any human activity that will threaten the presence of the Ruffs that feed in the region during their annual migration, Gerhard uses his power to prevent Linda from building an enclosure for the horses. Neither of which understand the old antagonisms present in the community.

To this state of affairs, set in 2010, Juli Zeh throws in a private company, Vento Direct with a project to install a wind turbines park in the local countryside, where no single land owner has quite a large enough patch of land without the small patch which Linda Franzen discovers she owns….
This was a magnificent read which I highly recommend.

First Published in German as “Unterleuten” in 2016 by Random House GmbH.
Translated into French by Rose Labourie and published as “Brandebourg ” in 2017 by Actes Sud
*** My translation

The quote as read in French

“Le fermage pour Dix éoliennes, c’est cinquante Mille euros par an. Á vous de faire le calcul pour cent éoliennes. Histoires de voir quelle retraite ça donne.”….
“Gombrowski va fermer l’Ökologica. Il n’en a plus besoin. Fini, terminé.”
L’effet fut immédiat. Kron coupa court aux murmures qui s’élevaient d’un geste de la main.
“Réfléchisez un peu. Ça fait longtemps que l’Ökologica n’est plus rentable. Pourquoi est-ce que Gombrowski tient tellement au parc éolien? Pour se faire une jolie pension de retraite.”
Cette fois, il les laissa murmurer. Á part Ulrich, ils avaient tous de la famille qui travaillait á l’Ökologica: fille, neveu, fils et gendre; la petite fille de Björn venait de commencer un apprentissage d’agronomie. Á Unterleuten, perdre son travaille était l’équivalent d’un arrêt de mort professionnel.

Rasha Khayat ‘We’ve Long been Elsewhere’

And they’ve always told us, that everything is fine like this, that we have the best of both worlds, that there are only advantages, since we know two different cultures. img_0013But most of the other people you meet always want you to choose a side, they never tell you that they’re just looking to confirm what they already know. Nobody ever tells you that this divide has no end, will never heal over and that you don’t rightly belong anywhere.

In this book,chosen for the Roman De Rochefort prize and read for German Literature month, Basil the son of a Saudi Arabian doctor and German wife comes back to his apartment in Saint Pauli to discover that the sister, Layla, that he is so close to has left Germany without warning to go back to live in Saudi Arabia where they had last lived as young children. When the book begins Basil is preparing to fly to Jedda for his sister’s wedding, passing by his mother, Barbara’s apartment, on the way to the airport. She thinks that this is one of Layla’s stubborn decisions and refuses to attend whilst Basil is really only going because it’s his duty. Everything seems clear.

As Basil arrives in Jedda we slowly get to know his and Layla’s large and noisy Saudi family, with each part of it living on a different floor of their large apartment block and things seem to become more negative as Basil meets Layla’s soon to be, and arranged, husband who seems only interested in his phone. But as the book moves on we get the feeling of the genuine sense of togetherness and love holding his uncles’s family together. We find out of their family tragedy, the death of Basil’s father of a sudden heart attack soon after moving back to Germany with his family after the children had begun their schooling in Jedda. Their then staying, naturally, with Barbara. Basil even agrees to go to the mosque when his cousin Omar explains to him that his devout uncle, Khaled, feels responsible for the whole family since his brothers death and assuring that they will all be reunited in the next world.

One evening after the others have gone to bed Layla tells him of her feelings, illustrated in the opening quote. Which also helps the reader to look at this tale of two cities with a little more distance. Then onto the stag night, out in the desert, smoking shishas and shooting at tin cans which Basil can’t come to terms with.

Soon after comes the day of the wedding, full of action but at the same time so strange to a western mind:

soon the other women head for the beauty parlour, and, as Omar explained , my only responsibilities for the day were to pose for the photos and then to lead the bride into the room. The party will then, as with everything else in this country, will be celebrated separately, the women in one place and the men in another.

“at sometime we drove to Omar’s” I said and the thought of it made me smile. “And played with a PlayStation. At three o’clock I was in bed and slept like a log. Imagine I should tell anyone that weddings here are celebrated playing video games!”

By the end of this story, Rasha Khayat has shared some of the nuances and contradictions of this country with the reader.

First Published in German as “Weil wir längst woanders sind” in 2016 by Dumont Buchverlag
Translated into French by Isabelle Liber and published as “Notre ailleurs” in 2019 by Actes Sud
*** my translation

The quotes as read in German before translation

Und dass sie uns immer erzählt haben, das sei alles ganz toll so, dass wir das Beste aus beiden Welten bekommen, dass wir nur Vorteile hätten, weil wir zwei so verschiedene Kulturen kennen. Aber dass die meisten anderen, die man trifft, immer wollen, dass man sich für eine Seite entscheidet, dass sie immer nur suchen, was ihnen bekannt vorkommt, das haben sie uns nie gesagt. Dass dieser Graben nie endet, sich nie schließen wird und dass man nie irgendwo richtig hingehört. So was sagt dir niemand.«

die anderen Frauen sind bald zum Beauty-Salon aufgebrochen, und, wie Omar mir erklärt, besteht meine einzige Aufgabe heute darin, später für die Fotos zu posieren und danach die Braut in den Saal zu führen. Gefeiert wird getrennt, wie immer hier im Land, Frauen für sich und Männer für sich. »Vierhundert Frauen«, sagt Omar. »Mütter, Schwiegermütter, Cousinen, Tanten, Angeheiratete, Freundinnen. Mach dich auf was gefasst.«

»Wir sind irgendwann zu Omar gefahren«, sage ich und muss bei dem Gedanken daran grinsen. »Haben PlayStation gespielt. Um drei war ich dann im Bett und habe geschlafen wie ein Stein. Wenn ich das jemandem erzähle, dass hier mit Videospielen Hochzeit gefeiert wird!«

The quotes as read in French

“Et qu’ils veuillent toujours nous faire croire que tout était si formidable, que nous avions le meilleur de deux mondes, qu’il n’y avait que des avantages à connaître comme nous deux cultures si différentes. Mais jamais ils ne nous ont dit que la plupart des gens qu’on rencontre veulent toujours qu’on fasse le choix d’un parti, qu’ils ne cherchent toujours que ce qui leur semble familier. Que ce fossé n’avait pas de fond, qu’il ne se refermerait jamais et qu’on n’était jamais nulle part chez soi. Personne ne te l’apprend, ça.”

Layla et les autres femmes sont parties pour l’institut de beauté et, comme me l’explique Omar, ma seule tâche aujourd’hui consistera à poser tout à l’heure sur les photos, puis à conduire la mariée jusque dans la salle de réception. Comme toujours ici, les festivités se déroulent séparément, les femmes d’un côté, les hommes de l’autre. “Quatre cents femmes”, dit Omar. “Mères, belle-mères, cousines, tantes, pièces rapportées, amies. Tu ne vas pas en croire tes yeux.”

“On a fini la soirée chez Omar, dis-je, incapable de retenir un sourire. On a joué à la PlayStation. À 3 heures, j’étais au lit et j’ai dormi comme un bébé. Tu imagines, si je raconte à quelqu’un qu’ici on célèbre les mariages en jouant à des jeux vidéo!”