Libyan Writer's Debut Novel: Damn This Religion!
CNNLibya recently posted about the controversy over Libyan attorney Wafa Bu'esa's first novel Hunger Has Other Faces. (Al Jazeera's report) The novel, written in the first-person for "dramatic effect" as the writer says, tells the story of a girl who is forced by "living circumstances" to leave a stereotypically cloistered Libya and go live with her uncle's family in Egypt. Here, the protagonist begins to broadcast her rejection of and hate for Islam in no uncertain terms, seeing an alternative in the Coptic Church because the "doors are always open."
Most concisely expressed in the "damn this religion" on p. 144, the protagonist’s long litany of anti-Islam sentiments runs through the novel, as she proclaims, for example, that "the Quran is incomprehensible," that "I do nothing all day but pray…prayer has bent my back." These recurring, accumulative comments, as well as what its critics have described as missionary-propelled rhetoric, have sparked protests and debated over the novel and its writer.
Bu'esa, who grew up in Egypt, defended herself and attacked her critics in an interview with Khaled El Mheer in Libya Alyoum. She contends that her novel doesn't preach or lecture, but “describes something which happens on a daily basis”. This “something” appears to be a reference to depressed, repressed ex-Muslim girls flocking to (permanently open) Coptic Church doors.
Obviously we've moved on somewhat from the antiquated assumption of some sort of correlation between the writer and protagonist. The heroine is not the writer’s double/ideal self/imaginary friend. Bu'esa doesn’t need to actively dissociate herself from her Islam-hating heroine for there to be a distinction between writer and character. She does exasperatedly ask her interviewer if it is not yet time for women’s writing to be taken as literature not disguised autobiography. She also echoes countless other Muslim women writers who have said that the rights given to women by Islam are now too often summarily ignored. There’s nothing new in that observation, or in the idea that women’s rights in the region could do with a little improvement. But, as her statement indicates that the problems reside in our societies and traditions rather than in Islam, it potentially holds true for all Arab women, inside or outside a Coptic Church.
So it seems a little strange that Bu'esa should then describe the subject of her controversial novel, with dichotomous glee, as revolving around two “similar-different” places, Libya and Egypt, two “heavenly religions”, Christianity and Islam, and, “two opposing values”, these values being, respectively, open-mindedness and close-mindedness.
Dealing with death-dealing binaries, tables are always useful. The above seems grouped on either side of an invisible line into Libya/Islam/Close-Mindedness, and Egypt/Christianity/Open-Mindedness, with the novel charting the heroine’s desperate and courageous scramble into the light, castigating the evil forces that would drag her back into the dark wood. A regular peregrinatio.
The real difficulty, however, is that Bu'esa herself seems to find it impossible to draw the line between her character, her book and herself, the author. Also perhaps, between herself the lawyer and herself the author.
Because, when a lawyer who has just released her debut novel decides to take legal action against those who denounce her heroine, it does seem to indicate a slight jumbling of job descriptions. The words Publicity and Stunt also cross the conspiracy-addled mind.
Bu’esa decided to take legal action against Mohamad Alwaleed, lecturer in Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Garyounis, for what she claimed was defamation. Alwaleed argued that to say her heroine mocks the values of Islam is a factual description of the fictional story, not an attack against or takfir of the author.
And while that dispute remains unresolved, Bu’esa’s novel is fast selling out. CNNLibya makes the point that, as in countless other cases, injecting a little, or a lot, of anti-Islamic rhetoric into a work of art has proved to be one of the quickest, most effective routes to fame. The protests have obviously only raised Bu'esa's profile.
Most concisely expressed in the "damn this religion" on p. 144, the protagonist’s long litany of anti-Islam sentiments runs through the novel, as she proclaims, for example, that "the Quran is incomprehensible," that "I do nothing all day but pray…prayer has bent my back." These recurring, accumulative comments, as well as what its critics have described as missionary-propelled rhetoric, have sparked protests and debated over the novel and its writer.
Bu'esa, who grew up in Egypt, defended herself and attacked her critics in an interview with Khaled El Mheer in Libya Alyoum. She contends that her novel doesn't preach or lecture, but “describes something which happens on a daily basis”. This “something” appears to be a reference to depressed, repressed ex-Muslim girls flocking to (permanently open) Coptic Church doors.
Obviously we've moved on somewhat from the antiquated assumption of some sort of correlation between the writer and protagonist. The heroine is not the writer’s double/ideal self/imaginary friend. Bu'esa doesn’t need to actively dissociate herself from her Islam-hating heroine for there to be a distinction between writer and character. She does exasperatedly ask her interviewer if it is not yet time for women’s writing to be taken as literature not disguised autobiography. She also echoes countless other Muslim women writers who have said that the rights given to women by Islam are now too often summarily ignored. There’s nothing new in that observation, or in the idea that women’s rights in the region could do with a little improvement. But, as her statement indicates that the problems reside in our societies and traditions rather than in Islam, it potentially holds true for all Arab women, inside or outside a Coptic Church.
So it seems a little strange that Bu'esa should then describe the subject of her controversial novel, with dichotomous glee, as revolving around two “similar-different” places, Libya and Egypt, two “heavenly religions”, Christianity and Islam, and, “two opposing values”, these values being, respectively, open-mindedness and close-mindedness.
Dealing with death-dealing binaries, tables are always useful. The above seems grouped on either side of an invisible line into Libya/Islam/Close-Mindedness, and Egypt/Christianity/Open-Mindedness, with the novel charting the heroine’s desperate and courageous scramble into the light, castigating the evil forces that would drag her back into the dark wood. A regular peregrinatio.
The real difficulty, however, is that Bu'esa herself seems to find it impossible to draw the line between her character, her book and herself, the author. Also perhaps, between herself the lawyer and herself the author.
Because, when a lawyer who has just released her debut novel decides to take legal action against those who denounce her heroine, it does seem to indicate a slight jumbling of job descriptions. The words Publicity and Stunt also cross the conspiracy-addled mind.
Bu’esa decided to take legal action against Mohamad Alwaleed, lecturer in Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Garyounis, for what she claimed was defamation. Alwaleed argued that to say her heroine mocks the values of Islam is a factual description of the fictional story, not an attack against or takfir of the author.
And while that dispute remains unresolved, Bu’esa’s novel is fast selling out. CNNLibya makes the point that, as in countless other cases, injecting a little, or a lot, of anti-Islamic rhetoric into a work of art has proved to be one of the quickest, most effective routes to fame. The protests have obviously only raised Bu'esa's profile.
Cross-posted at MidEast Youth
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3 comments:
excellent post ;).
salaam
Great, Tasnim. She may portray the reality of the outside world through her stories based on her surroundings and it does not have to reflect her life, but what she sees with her own eyes.
ph, thx :) rien, I agree there's no reason to assume the novel is autobiographical in any way, although some of her opinions sound similar to her heroine's.
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